How to make categories and forum appear

[Archbob]

I'm asking about making forums appear under the right categories.

right now I'm thinking:

$r="select * from categories"; 
$r2=mysql_query($r); 
while($r3=mysql_fetch_array($r2)) 
{ 
  //print category here 
  $s="SELECT * from forums where catparent='$r3[category']"; 
$s2=mysql_query($s); 
while ($s3=mysql_fetch_array($s2)) 
  { 
      //print forum name here 
  } 
} 

Now this would work but if there are alot of categories, it takes alot of queries. Do they do it this way or do that do it some other way and select categories and forum at once and merge it together with a join statement?

[Dean Wilson]

There is not much different to these but you could try it and check which loads better.

$r = mysql_query("select * from categories"); 
while($r2 = mysql_fetch_array($r)){ 
//print category here 
$s = mysql_query("SELECT * from forums where catparent='$r2[category]'");
while($s2 = mysql_fetch_array($s)){ 
//print forum name here 
} 
} 

[PHP John]

I would strongly suggest giving your variables more meaningful names. It will help with readability and maintenance.

[Archbob]

Well, that was just an example, I use pretty good variables in my real programming.

[PHP John]

gotcha!