Is it possible to echo multiple results outside of a while loop? - php

Question

I have a while loop that I use to echo multiple mysql results that translate into offline users. To make things more organized, I wanted to perform the query, store the results in a variable and then echo it at the bottom of the page. I need to echo both online and offline users within a certain parent div, so it seems cluttered to me to echo the first div tag and then perform both queries and echo the results, then echo the closing tag. Currently, if I try to echo the result from outside the while loop, I only get 1 result. If anyone has any ideas, I would appreciate it.
$sql = 'SELECT * FROM users
LEFT JOIN friendships
ON friendships.friend_id = users.id
WHERE friendships.user_id = ?
AND users.id NOT IN (
SELECT active_users.id FROM active_users)';
$stmt5 = $conn->prepare($sql);
$result=$stmt5->execute(array($userid));
while ($row = $stmt5->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
$online=htmlspecialchars( $row['username'], ENT_NOQUOTES, 'UTF-8' );
$online = "<div class='user-online'>
<a data-name=\"$to\">$to</a>
</div>";
$online.=etc...plus do other processes
}
<div id=\"online\">
".$online."
</div>

Answer 1

You need to store your SQL results in an array
$sql = 'SELECT * FROM users
LEFT JOIN friendships
ON friendships.friend_id = users.id
WHERE friendships.user_id = ?
AND users.id NOT IN (
SELECT active_users.id FROM active_users)';
$stmt5 = $conn->prepare($sql);
$result=$stmt5->execute(array($userid));
while ($row = $stmt5->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
$online[]=htmlspecialchars( $row['username'], ENT_NOQUOTES, 'UTF-8' );
}
<div id=\"online\">
<?php foreach ($online as $aline) {
echo $aline;
} ?>
</div>
I've trimmed some code for clarity but hopefully it helps

Answer 2

Each iteration of the while loop is redefining the $online variable (overwriting it's previous value). You may either define one variable outside of the loop, and append to it in the loop, or store the results in an array, and loop through it to generate the output.

Answer 3

You don't need the while loop. Provided you have enough memory:
$rows = $stmt5->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);