Dynamic Optgroup in PHP - php

Question

This is my current SQL Table I'm using to grab data for my php dropdown. The main goal of this is to turn this into a dropdown that has an optgroup with the members below and so on...
+-----------+------------+-----------+
| GroupName | MemberName | ValueName |
+-----------+------------+-----------+
| 1st Team | Joe Bob | Joe |
| 1st Team | Catherine | Kat |
| 2nd Team | Tommy | Tom |
| 3rd Team | John Razks | John |
+-----------+------------+-----------+
Table name: Members
Basically at the end result is such of the code below. It will be a dropdown with an optgroup called "1st Team" and have the members below ect. for 2nd Team and 3rd Team and so on.
<optgroup class="1st Team">
<option value="Joe">Joe Bob</option>
<option value="Kat">Catherine</option>
</optgroup>
<optgroup class="2nd Team">
<option value="Tom">Tommy</option>
</optgroup>
<optgroup class="3rd Team">
<option value="John">John Razks</option>
</optgroup>
Right now, this is how I get information from my SQL table. This works fine, but if I want to add a new GroupName then I would have to add a new code to my main page and I don't want to do that.
Trying make it dynamic so if the SQL table gets updated with a new GroupName, then a new optgroup class will appear in the dropdown and the members will be below.
<optgroup class="1st Team">
<?php
$conn = mysqli_connect("#connect_to_sql");
if(!$conn){
die("Connection Failed".myslqi_connect_error());
}
$result = mysqli_query($conn, "SELECT distinct MemberName from Members where GroupName = "1st Team" order by MemberName ASC");
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)){
unset($membername, $groupname);
$groupname = $row['GroupName'];
$membername = $row['MemberName'];
echo '<option value="'.$membername.'">'.$membername.'</option>';
}
?>
</optgroup>
I'm not positive at all on what to do. I've looked at other people's examples, but not sure how to approach this step.

Answer 1

First get all records from the database. create an array with keys as group name. Loop the new array to generate the desired output.
// query to get all records from database table
$result = mysqli_query($conn, "SELECT distinct MemberName,GroupName,ValueName from Members order by MemberName ASC");
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)){
// generate an array with keys as group name
$array[$row['GroupName']][] = $row;
}
// loop the array to create optgroup
foreach($array as $key=>$value){
// check if its an array
if(is_array($value)){
// create optgroup for each groupname
echo "<optgroup class='".$key."'>";
foreach($value as $k=>$v){
echo "<option value='".$v['membername']."'>'".$v['membername']."'</option>";
}
echo "</optgroup>";
}
}
I have not tested this but sure this will help you. And you can make improvements.

Answer 2

It's not the most elegant way, but you could build your group this way, what it's doing is checking the name of the group and changes that to a new optgroup each time the name changes, the $first var is just there so it doesn't add a closing tag the first time around.
I'm sure you can improve on this, but it should get you going.
It does kind of rely on a consistent naming convention for the group name, so as I say, I'm sure you could improve on it. I've also not included the connection checks as you've done that already in your example
$result = mysqli_query($conn, "SELECT * FROM Members ORDER BY GroupName");
$groupName = '';
$first = true;
echo '<select>';
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)){
if ($row['GroupName'] != $groupName) {
$groupName = $row['GroupName']; // Just set the new group name
if (!$first) { // Add a closing tag when we change the group, but only if we're not in the first loop
echo '</optgroup>';
} else {
$first = false; // Make sure we don't close the tag first time, but do after the first loop
}
echo '<optgroup label="' . $groupName . '">';
}
// We want to echo the options every loop so it's outside the if condition
echo '<option value="' . $row['MemberName'] . '">' . $row['ValueName'] . '</option>';
}
echo '</select>';