how can I make loop within a loop in codeigniter? - php

Question

I have table faq_categories with following fields
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `faq_categories` (
`catid` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`categoryname` varchar(37) NOT NULL,
`parentid` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`description` text NOT NULL,
`metatags` text NOT NULL,
`sorder` int(11) NOT NULL,
`visible` tinyint(4) NOT NULL,
`categoryphoto` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`catid`),
KEY `parentid_fk` (`parentid`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=52 ;
In my php code I have the following code :
$query="SELECT * FROM categories";
$result=mysql_query($query);
$num=mysql_num_rows($result);
$i=0;
while ($i < $num) {
$id=mysql_result($result,$i,"id");
$name=mysql_result($result,$i,"name");
$parentid=mysql_result($result,$i,"parentid");
$categoryphoto=mysql_result($result,$i,"categoryphoto");
$sorder=mysql_result($result,$i,"sorder");
$visible=mysql_result($result,$i,"visible");
echo $id;
echo $name;
// THIS IS WHAT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IN CODEIGNITER
// HOW TO GET THE CATEGORYNAME ON BASE ON PARENTID
if ($parentid) {
//echo $parentid;
$query1="SELECT name as parentname FROM categories WHERE id = ".$parentid;
echo mysql_result(mysql_query($query1),0,"parentname");
} else {
echo "Root Category";
}
How can I do this in codeigniter? If possible, I would like to avoid joins.

Answer 1

First: I think you can check Database class
Second: why don't you want use joins? If you hate it maybe you can use FROM table1,table2 :) IMHO lesser queries is better :)
EDIT
Install an sql-gui (e.g. phpMyAdmin, adminer...) and try some query! An example similar what you need:
SELECT *, catjoin.categoryname AS parentname
FROM categories
JOIN categories AS catjoin ON (catjoin.catid=categories.parentid)
You can extend catjoin.categoryname with IFNULL to returns ROOT category.