Where to learn about these topics

[Chris Lott <chris.lott@xxxxxxxxx>]

Where can I learn topics such as:

1) Examples of complex PHP applications entering data into complex
related table structures. For instance, if I am writing an application
to create a class catalog that has 5 related tables, how do I handle
the workflow when the data in related tables doesn't yet exist? Do I
force a user to enter data into 5 different forms first? Do I have a
place to enter the new data on the main form? Do I create temporary
records as part of a step-by-step process?

2) Complex display with database results-- particularly when working
with many joined tables, displaying results effectively for reporting
(show me all departments, within that all classes, within that who is
teaching, sorted by department). The queries aren't hard, but if
optimized into one big query the constructs for displaying seem to get
ugly. For instance, given a query that gives me these results as
$result (joined together from three tables):

+---------+----------+----------+-----------+-------+
| first   | last     | relation | city      | state |
+---------+----------+----------+-----------+-------+
| Chris   | Beks     | business | Fairbanks | AK    |
| Robert  | Hannon   | friend   | Fairbanks | AK    |
| Cindy   | Lott     | family   | Fresno    | CA    |
| Derryl  | Hartz    | business | Seattle   | WA    |
| Kirsten | O'Malley | friend   | Seattle   | WA    |
+---------+----------+----------+-----------+-------+

It seems like there must be a more efficient way to get a listing of
each city and who lives there than:


$currentcity = '';
$counter = 1;

while ($thisrow = mysql_fetch_array($result))
	{
	if ($currentcity <> $thisrow['city'])
		{
		if ($counter > 1)
			{
			echo '</blockquote>';
			}
		echo '<h1>' . $thisrow['city'] . '</h1>';
		echo '<blockquote>';
		$currentcity = $thisrow['city'];
		}
	echo $thisrow['first'] . ' ' . $thisrow['last'] . '<br />';
	$counter++;
	}

Although this is preferable to running separate queries:

$query = 'select lid, city, state from locations order by city, state';

$result = mysql_query($query) or die('Couldn\'t perform the query: ' . $query); 

while ($thisrow = mysql_fetch_array($result))
	{
	echo '<h1>' . $thisrow['city'] . ', ' . $thisrow['state'] . '</h1>';
	echo '<blockquote>';
	$pquery = "select first, last from people where lid =
{$thisrow['lid']} order by last, first";
	$presult = mysql_query($pquery) or die('Couldn\'t perform the query:
' . $query);
	while ($prow = mysql_fetch_array($presult))
		{
		echo $prow['first'] . ' ' . $prow['last'] . '<br />';
		}
	echo '</blockquote>';
	}

c

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