Alphabetically ordered list from mysqli join query - php

Question

I am trying to print out an alphabetically ordered list of usernames after using a mysqli join query to select userid's from a friends table.
Friends table consists of
id - userid_one - userid_two - friendship_date - friendship_type
Users table has a pretty standard layout, and the only field I really need from it is the username (to display) and the userid to link the two tables
what i want to achieve is the below
A
Andy
Anna
B
Bobby
Brian
The code i am using is below.
$ir['userid'] //the current users id
$getfriends = mysqli_query($con,"SELECT * FROM friends INNER JOIN users ON (friends.userid_one = users.userid OR friends.userid_two = users.userid) WHERE (userid_one = '{$ir['userid']}' OR userid_two = '{$ir['userid']}') ORDER BY username") or die("query error");
$last="";
if(mysqli_num_rows($getfriends) == 0)
{
print"<li>You have no friends....sorry</li>";
}
else
{
while($gotf=mysqli_fetch_array($getfriends))
{
if($gotf['userid_one'] == $ir['userid']){$friend = $gotf['userid_two'];}else{$friend = $gotf['userid_one'];}
$printed_array = explode(",",$printed);
if(!in_array($friend,$printed_array))
{
$username_of_user = get_username_no_link($friend);
$current_letter = $username_of_user[0];
if ($last != $current_letter) {
print"<li class='Label'>{$current_letter}</li>";
$username_of_user = get_username_nd_avatar($friend);
print"<li>".$username_of_user."</li>";
$last = $current_letter;
$printed = $printed.",".$friend;
}
elseif($last == $current_letter){
$username_of_user = get_username_nd_avatar($friend);
print"<li>".$username_of_user."</li>";
$last = $current_letter;
$printed = $printed.",".$friend;
}
}
}
}
I have not got much experience of using JOIN in mysqli queries and my issue is that I am not getting the list sorted alphabetically as the below example shows.
A
Andy
T
Thomas
S
Sandra
Sally
UPDATE--
the order in which the usernames display, now seems to change randomly after reloading the page, which is further confusing the matter!

Answer 1

question now answered after some playing around. Ended up putting the usernames into an array, then sorting the array alphabetically by value, as well as adding a $printed_array array to add each friend to after they were printed to prevent them being printed out twice.
$usersnames = array();
while($gotf=mysqli_fetch_array($getfriends))
{
if($printed != ""){$comma = ",";}
if($gotf['userid_one'] == $ir['userid']){$friend = $gotf['userid_two'];}else{$friend = $gotf['userid_one'];}
$printed_array = explode(",",$printed);
if(!in_array($friend,$printed_array))
{
$username_of_user = get_username_no_link($friend);
$usersnames[] = $username_of_user;
$printed = $printed.$comma.$friend;
}
}
sort($usersnames);
foreach($usersnames as $name)
{
$getuserid = mysqli_query($con,"SELECT userid,avatar FROM users WHERE username = '$name' LIMIT 1");
$gotuserid = mysqli_fetch_array($getuserid);
//var_dump($gotuserid);
$displaypic = "<img style='height:30px;vertical-align:middle;margin:5px;' src='".$gotuserid['avatar']."'>";
$current_letter = $name[0];
if ($last != $current_letter)
{
print"<li class='Label'>{$current_letter}</li>";
print"<li><a href='profile/".$name."'>".$displaypic.$name."</a></li>";
$last = $current_letter;
}
elseif($last == $current_letter)
{
print"<li><a href='profile/".$name."'>".$displaypic.$name."</a></li>";
$last = $current_letter;
}
}