Match SQL Id's and get and apply the matching value - php

Question

I'm working on an add-on for a script. It's an old add-on written by someone else I used to know but then just left dead. In my interests of learning more php/sql, I've been working on it. Pretty much, it's a support ticket system.
Right now, there's a file which holds all convenient DB functions when they need to be called. I'm making a page that lists all of the tickets, and their status (New, Answered, so on...), but I'd like to add the name of the Department it was sent to. Admins can make departments, and then users can pick one of these departments when making a ticket. My problem is, however, that the person who left the code never really merged departments with tickets. Here's the ticket code I currently have:
static function ticket_list() {
return OW::getDbo()->queryForList("SELECT id,category_id,subject,requested_deletion,department_id,updated,status FROM ".SupportCenterDB::table_ticket()." ORDER BY updated DESC;");
}
"department_id" is the key factor here. There's a DB table for departments, and a call for "department_get" which is as follows:
static function department_get($id) {
$d=OW::getDbo();
$res=$d->queryForList("SELECT * FROM ".SupportCenterDB::table_department()." WHERE id='".$d->escapeString($id)."';");
return $res[0];
}
So, I call all the tickets as so:
$tickets_q=SupportCenterDB::ticket_list();
$tickets=array();
foreach($tickets_q as $data) {
array_push($tickets,array(
"text"=>$data["subject"],
"updated"=>$data["updated"],
"department"=>$data["department_id"],
"status"=>$this->get_ticket_status($data),
//"url_view"=>"/settings/tickets/view/${data["id"]}",
"url_view"=>OW::getRouter()->urlForRoute("supportcenter-manage-tickets-view",array("id"=>$data["id"])),
"url_delete"=>OW::getRouter()->urlForRoute("supportcenter-manage-tickets-delete",array("id"=>$data["id"])),
"request_deletion"=>$data["requested_deletion"],
));
}
$this->assign("items",$tickets);
This simply only shows the actual id of the selected department when I have the value displayed on the table. In this case, the department's text value is "Support" but the ID is "1". This code shows the department as the id, so as "1". I want to get it so the received $data of the department_id will match with the rest of my Department tables, so that I can actually display the Department text.
Basically, I want to get the value of department_id from each $tickets_q, and have the id match with the text of the corresponding department, so it displays the actual name and not the ID number.
Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

What you're looking for is an Inner Join. You can modify your original query to accomplish this in one statement. This also assumes you don't need the department_id, just the department_name. If you do need it, add it back into your list of fields to fetch.
static function ticket_list() {
$table_ticket = SupportCenterDB::table_ticket();
return OW::getDbo()->queryForList("SELECT id, category_id, subject,
requested_deletion, table_departments.text, updated, status FROM {$table_ticket}
JOIN table_departments ON table_departments.id = {$table_ticket}.department_id
ORDER BY updated DESC;");
}
Note: You should really look into using a prepared statement for the SQL query, that way you're not passing in a parameter directly into your select statement, even if it is defined right above it.
Update:
"department"=>$data["department_id"] needs to become "department"=>$data["text"]. To be cleaner, you could give the field an alias so you know what you're actually pulling.
SELECT id, category_id, ..., table_departments.text AS department_name, updated, status...
And then the line above becomes "department"=>$data["department_name"].