Diplay All Records, But Distinct? - php

Question

I'm trying to display all the records in tbInventory, but there are multiple duplicates on the records, specifically under the colItem column. Now what I'm trying to show are all the records in tbInventory but I want it in a way that it will only show an item once if it has a duplicate.
Now my current code displays this:
As you can see, its printing all the items with the colItem values of 'Access Point'. I only want the code to display the item 'Access Point' only once even if it has duplicates.
Now I can't simply use the DISTINCT function as I'm also using the code block for the printing of the data. Here's my current code:
$con=mysqli_connect("localhost","root","","dbDssInventory");
if (mysqli_connect_errno($con)){
echo "Failed to connect to MySQL " . mysqli_connect_error();
}
$result=mysqli_query($con,"SELECT * from tbInventory ORDER BY colItem");
if($result != NULL){
while($row=mysqli_fetch_array($result))
{
echo "<table border=0 style=\"table-layout:fixed;\">";
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td align=left width=15 style=\"word-wrap:break-word;\">";
echo "<div class=\"hover_img\">";
echo " <a href=\"#\">";
echo " <img src='MAGNIFYINGGLASS.png' alt='Point' width='70%'><em>
<object data=" .$row['colImage']. ".PNG width='850%' type=\"image/png\">
<img src=\"default.png\" width='850%'>
</object>";
echo "</td>";
echo "<td align=left width=160 style=\"word-wrap:break-word;\" style=\"word-wrap:break-word;\">";
echo $row['colItem'];
echo "</td>";
$itemname= $row['colItem'];
Is there a way to execute this?

Answer 1

Instead of
$result=mysqli_query($con,"SELECT * from tbInventory ORDER BY colItem");
Try this:
$result=mysqli_query($con,"SELECT * from tbInventory GROUP BY colItem ORDER BY colItem");
You will get the item 'Access Point' only once even if it has duplicates. Hope it helps!