Smarty

[spib]

Hey Guys,

I have two db tables. The first is a list of catagories, the second is a list of items each of which has a catagory id. What is the best way to store this for it to be displayed in my template? What I'm looking for is to display:-

Cat 1
Item 1
Item 2

Cat 2
Item 1
Item 2

My initial thought was to grab a list of the catagories from the db and assign them as an array, then for each catagory select the relevant Items and assign these as an array with the name of the catagory:-

[php:1:baf97c0ee2]
<?php

function GetItemList()
{
$this->assign('Catagories', $this->GetCatagories());

foreach($this->get_template_vars('Catagories') as $Cat)
{
$this->assign('Cat_' . $Cat.Name,$this->GetCatItems($Cat.seq_no));
}
}
?>[/php:1:baf97c0ee2]

Is this the correct way to do it?

[spib]

Can anyone help with this? This is the only problem I have at the moment and I'm desperate to fix it. If my question might be better posted elsewhere then please let me know.

[boots]

IMHO, this is not a Smarty question. The "best-way" to store anything is extremely dependant on its typical access/usage patterns meaning that there is no single answer to your question.

Never-the-less, you have options. For example, instead of making multiple, iterative calls to your db for each category, why not just join the tables in the query itself and have the db do the work--unless you REALLY know what you are doing, it is very difficult to do better than a SQL optimizer at retrieving related data from multiple tables. Having said that, you do have to make sure your db is properly built and maintained. IE. proper indexes and suitable de-normalizations (a full academic form 5 normlaization of your db is typically a bad choice for most production/on-line systems).

In this case, you'd get back a flat array which is much easier to process especially since it only requires a single loop. If the data in the array is ordered by categoryID then as you process the array you need only to determine if the current categoryID is different from the last categoryID to determine if you have to print a new title, etc.

I suggest you reconsider the order of assignment operations. In particular, try to avoid using Smarty as part of your application control logic (ie. the smarty assign followed by the get_tamplate_vars). In general, it is preferable to only assign the final product of your application processing to Smarty.

Good Luck

[spib]

Thanks boots. I'm not particularly au fait with Databases but I think I follow what you're suggesting. Thanks for your help.