How can one efficiently retrieve categories and their corresponding items from a database table in PHP?

To efficiently retrieve categories and their corresponding items from a database table in PHP, you can use a SQL query to fetch the data and then organize it into a nested array structure where each category contains its corresponding items. This can be achieved by looping through the query results and building the nested array dynamically. 

// Assume $db is the database connection object

// Query to retrieve categories and items
$query = "SELECT category, item FROM your_table ORDER BY category";
$result = $db->query($query);

// Initialize an empty array to store categories and items
$categories = [];

// Loop through the query results and organize data into nested array
while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    $category = $row['category'];
    $item = $row['item'];
    
    // Check if category already exists in the array
    if (!isset($categories[$category])) {
        $categories[$category] = [];
    }
    
    // Add item to the corresponding category
    $categories[$category][] = $item;
}

// Output the nested array structure
print_r($categories);

Keywords

PHP database retrieval categories items

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