Displaying Multidimensional Arrays...about to put my head in a vice, PLEASE HELP

Posted on 16th Feb 2014 by admin

I am fairly new to PHP and MySQL and I have a problem which I have been trying to resolve for days. I just can't figure it out and can't find anything on the web that is helping me work it out.

I hope someone out there can assist.

Ultimately I want to display the data as follows (this is just an example of how I want it displayed, it does not mirror the data set below)...

<h2><a href="procedure.php?number=f1>Finance Procedure 1 - F1</a></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="form/f1_fm1.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 1</a></li>
<li><a href="form/f1_fm2.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 2</a></li>
<li><a href="form/f1_fm3.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 3</a></li>
</ul>

<h2><a href="procedure.php?number=f2>Finance Procedure 2 - F2</a></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="form/f2_fm1.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 1</a></li>
<li><a href="form/f2_fm2.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 2</a></li>
<li><a href="form/f2_fm3.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 3</a></li>
</ul>

<h2><a href="procedure.php?number=f3>Finance Procedure 3 - F3</a></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="form/f3_fm1.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 1</a></li>
<li><a href="form/f3_fm2.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 2</a></li>
<li><a href="form/f3_fm2.pdf" target="blank">Finance Form 3</a></li>
</ul>

I have 2 tables (procedure_name and procedure_form). and run the following query which gives me the required data set.

$sql = "SELECT procedure_info.id, procedure_info.name, procedure_info.number, procedure_form.form, procedure_form.form_file
FROM procedure_info
LEFT JOIN procedure_form ON ( procedure_info.id = procedure_form.name_id )
WHERE procedure_info.procedure_area = '14'
ORDER BY procedure_info.procedure_area ASC";

My problem is that I don't know how to output the result set I achieve into the exampled display. my data set looks like this.

id ---name ------------------------------number --form ---------------------form_file

33 ---Referral ---------------------------E2E1 ----NULL ----------------------NULL
34 ---Employer led E2E referral -----------E2E1a ---NULL ----------------------NULL
35 ---Centre Start & Induction -----------E2E2 ----NULL ----------------------NULL
39 ---Programme activity plan & review ---E2E4 ----NULL ----------------------NULL
38 ---Inital Assessment ------------------E2E3 ----Additional Information ------e2e2_fm4.pdf
38 ---Inital Assessment ------------------E2E3 ----E2E Weekly Batch Header ---mi1_fm2.pdf
40 ---Placement -------------------------E2E5 ----NULL ----------------------NULL
41 ---E2E Health & Safety review ---------E2E5a ---NULL ----------------------NULL
42 ---E2E Health & Safety Monitoring -----E2E5b ---NULL ----------------------NULL
43 ---E2E Basic skills ---------------------E2E6 ----NULL ------------------------NULL
44 ---Leavers ----------------------------E2E7 ----NULL ----------------------NULL

I think I have to put this data into a multidimensional array but I just can not work it out.

Can anyone help me? PLEASE!!!