Group results by year then parse using respective year as header for each group

[digidave]

I am keenly aware that my coding skills are extremely noob but please indulge me a second.. Take a look at these queries..

    $sql = "SELECT DISTINCT year FROM _current_floats_config WHERE active = 'yes' ORDER BY year DESC LIMIT 2, 1";
    $result = mysql_query($sql);
        while($fetched = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $ceiling = $fetched["year"];
    }
    $sql = "SELECT * FROM _current_floats WHERE active = 'yes' AND yearID <= $ceiling ORDER BY yearID DESC, name ASC";

As you can see in the first $sql query I'm ordering the query DESC and skipping the first two distinct results. This is because my client wants to features the first two years in the site's navigation. So we pick up the query at result 2 and assign the var $ceiling to the result.

I'm then creating another $sql query selecting all results in DESC order less than or equal to $ceiling.

What I need to do now is group these results by years, like this below:

2006

result, result, result, result, result, result, result, result, result

2005

result, result, result, result, result, result, result, result, result

2004

result, result, result

2003

result, result, result, result, result, result

etc, etc..

Here's the snippet that returns all the results without grouping them by year..

    $display = 3;
    $cols = 0;
    $sql = "SELECT DISTINCT year FROM _current_floats_config WHERE active = 'yes' ORDER BY year DESC LIMIT 2, 1";
    $result = mysql_query($sql);
        while($fetched = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $ceiling = $fetched["year"];
    }
    $sql = "SELECT * FROM _current_floats WHERE active = 'yes' AND yearID <= $ceiling ORDER BY yearID DESC, name ASC";
    echo $sql."<br /><br />";;
    $result = mysql_query($sql); 
    if (mysql_num_rows($result) > 0 ) {
 
/*        while($fetched = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
        echo $fetched["yearID"]."<br />";
        } // end WHILE statement
    } else { echo "Ooops!"; } // end IF statement
 
*/
    echo "<table width='100%' border='0' cellspacing='10' cellpadding='0' style='padding:10px;'>";
 
//$num = 1;
while($fetched = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
$num = $fetched["ID"];
    if($cols == 0){
        echo "<tr>\n";
    }
    // put what you would like to display within each cell here
 
if (((!empty($fetched["rendering"])) AND (!empty($fetched["rendering2"]))) OR ((!empty($fetched["rendering"])) AND (!empty($fetched["parade_pic"]))) OR ((!empty($fetched["parade_pic"])) AND (!empty($fetched["parade_pic2"])))) {
 
    echo "<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\" width=\"33%\"><h1 style=\"font-size:96%;\"><a title=\"$fetched[name]\" href=\"current.php?year=$fetched[yearID]&id=$fetched[ID]\">$fetched[name]</a></h1><br /><script type=\"text/javascript\">new fadeshow(fadeimages".$num.", 150, 150, 0, 5000, 0)</script></td>\n";
    $cols++;
    } elseif (!empty($fetched["rendering"])) {
    echo "<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\" width=\"33%\"><h1 style=\"font-size:96%;\"><a title=\"$fetched[name]\" href=\"current.php?year=$fetched[yearID]&id=$fetched[ID]&viewing=rendering\">$fetched[name]</a></h1><img class=\"reflect ropacity25 rheight15\" alt=\"$fetched[name]\" src=\"dynamic/images/show_image.php?filename=$fetched[rendering]&width=150&height=150\"></td>\n";
    $cols++;
    } elseif (!empty($fetched["parade_pic"])) {
    echo "<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\" width=\"33%\"><h1 style=\"font-size:96%;\"><a title=\"$fetched[name]\" href=\"current.php?year=$fetched[yearID]&id=$fetched[ID]&viewing=parade_pic\">$fetched[name]</a></h1><img class=\"reflect ropacity25 rheight15\" alt=\"$fetched[name]\" src=\"dynamic/images/show_image.php?filename=$fetched[parade_pic]&width=150&height=150\"></td>\n";
    $cols++;
    } else {
    echo "<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\" width=\"33%\"><h1 style=\"font-size:96%;\"><a title=\"$fetched[name]\" href=\"current.php?year=$fetched[yearID]&id=$fetched[ID]\">$fetched[name]</a></h1><img class=\"reflect ropacity25 rheight15\" alt=\"$fetched[name]\" src=\"dynamic/images/show_image.php?filename=none.jpg&width=150&height=150\"></td>\n";
    $cols++;
    }
    if($cols == $display){
        echo "</tr>\n\n";
        $cols = 0;
    }
 
} // end IF statement
 
// added the following so it would display the correct html
if($cols != $display && $cols != 0){
    $neededtds = $display - $cols;
    for($i=0;$i<$neededtds;$i++){
        echo "<td>&nbsp;</td>\n";
    }
     echo "</tr>\n</table>\n"; 
    } else {
    echo "</table>\n";
 
} // end WHILE statement
 
        //
        // THERE ARE NO RESULTS FOR THE GIVEN YEAR
        //
 
 
} else { echo "<p style=\"font-size:2.4em;color:#FF0C12;margin-bottom:-25px;\">Oops!</p><p>We couldn't find any floats in our database beyond the past two years.</p><p>You can check back later or select a year under the <strong>Our Floats</strong> heading on the left to continue.</p>"; }
 
}

Can someone steer me in the right direction? Thanks!

[digidave]

Anyone, Bueller.. Bueller?