mysql php alphabetical listing with index-letters - php

Question

I have a mysql database (plattenkiste) with bandnames
id | kuenstler
1 | Aerosmith
2 | Beck
3 | Metallica
4 | Slayer
5 | Zappa, Frank
Now i want an output in alphabetical Order with directlinks and index-letters, showing only the index-letters with bandnames.
Like
Directlinks: A|B|M|S|Z
A
Aerosmith
B
Beck
M
Metallica
S
Slayer
Z
Zappa, Frank
I have a "quick and dirty" code that does what i want:
$abc = "0123456789AÄBCDEFGHIJKLMNOÖPQRSTUÜVWXYZ";
for($i=0; $i<strlen($abc); $i++){
$char = substr($abc, $i, 1);
$query = "SELECT kuenstler FROM plattenkiste WHERE kuenstler LIKE '$char%'";
$ergebnis = $mysqli->query($query);
$num = $ergebnis->num_rows;
if ($num != 0){
echo "<a href='#$char'>$char</a> | ";
}}
for($i=0; $i<strlen($abc); $i++){
$char = substr($abc, $i, 1);
$query = "SELECT kuenstler FROM plattenkiste WHERE kuenstler LIKE '$char%'";
$ergebnis = $mysqli->query($query);
$num = $ergebnis->num_rows;
if ($num != 0){
echo "<h4 id='$char'>$char</h4>";
while($row = $ergebnis->fetch_object()){
echo $row->kuenstler . '<br />';
}
}
}
Is there a shorter, more clean way to get this done?

Answer 1

You can have MySQL do much of the grunt for you, by both sorting the results and (for the initial list) providing only the initial characters. Then you merely need have PHP loop over the resultsets and output the necessary HTML (for the second list, adding a header whenever it encounters a new initial character).
If your plattenkiste.kuenstler column has a case sensitive collation then you may wish to explicitly specify a case insensitive collation in the ORDER BY clauses.
$query = 'SELECT DISTINCT UCASE(LEFT(kuenstler, 1)) AS char
FROM plattenkiste
ORDER BY kuenstler';
$ergebnis = $mysqli->query($query);
if ($ergebnis) {
while ($row = $ergebnis->fetch_object()) {
$char = htmlentities($row->char);
echo "<a href='#$char'>$char</a> | ";
}
}
$query = 'SELECT kuenstler FROM plattenkiste ORDER BY kuenstler';
$ergebnis = $mysqli->query($query);
if ($ergebnis) {
$row = $ergebnis->fetch_object();
while ($row) {
$c = $row->kuenstler[0];
$char = htmlentities(strtoupper($c));
echo "<h4 id='$char'>$char</h4>";
do {
echo htmlentities($row->kuenstler), '<br />';
} while ($row = $ergebnis->fetch_object() and $row->kuenstler[0] == $c);
}
}

Answer 2

I've had to do things like this before as well. The easiest option is to just loop through your results and build a series of arrays...
$artists = $mysqli->query(
'SELECT kuenstler FROM Lattenkiste ORDER BY kuenstler ASC'
);
$letters = array();
// get the results and sort them into arrays
while($artist = $artists->fetch_object()) {
// ge the first letter
$firstLetter = strtoupper($artist->kuenstler{0});
// if we don't have a key for it, make it
if (!isset($letters[$firstLetter])) {
$letters[$firstLetter] = array();
}
$letters[$firstLetter] = $artist->kuenstler;
}
// output the headings
echo '<ul class="directlinks">';
foreach (array_keys($letters) as $letter) {
echo '<li>' . $letter . '</li>';
}
echo '</ul>';
// now output each set of letters
foreach (array_keys($letters) as $letter) {
echo '<h4 id="' . $letter . '">' . $letter . '</h4>';
echo '<ul class="artists">';
foreach ($letters[$letter] as $kuenstler) {
echo '<li>' . $kuenstler . '</li>';
}
echo '</ul>';
}