order by grouping

[flemingmike]

hi, i have a field for price that gets returned.

 

is there a way to do ORDER BY 'category' so that i can have tally at the bottom of each category that adds all the prices together?

[flemingmike]

this would help me also:

 

what is the propper way to write this:

 

$mechanic1 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM staff ORDER BY name");
while($row44 = mysql_fetch_array($mechanic1))
{
$meid=$row44['eid'];
}

$result3 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM timesheet WHERE date >= '$payperiodstart' AND date < '$payperiodend' ORDER BY '$meid' ");
while($row3 = mysql_fetch_array($result3))
{

 

reason being is that inside timesheets, i have an employeeid field (eid).  im hoping that with result3 i can have it ordered by the mechanic name even though i dont have a field in timesheets for name.

[flemingmike]

any direction is appreciated