排序结果mysql / php

Lets say i have a list full of phones. It's easy to print all the phones out in a unordered list like:

$get_phones = $mysqli->query("
SELECT
    a.id,
    b.phone_id,
    a.phonename AS pname,
    b.modelname AS mname,
FROM phone_brands 
a LEFT OUTER JOIN phone_models b
ON a.id = b.phone_id");

while($phones = $get_phones->fetch_assoc()){
echo $phones['pname'] . $phones['mname'];}

But how can i make the list more readable by sorting all the models and phones like:

Iphone
3G
3GS
4G

Nokia
Lumia 1020
Lumia 925
Lumia 520

My guess is that i should do something like:

if($phones['pname'] == $phones['pname']{}

But i don't know if i'm far away here? Any help would be appreciated :)

Well ofcourse you could order the query by mname:

$get_phones = $mysqli->query("
SELECT
    a.id,
    b.phone_id,
    a.phonename AS pname,
    b.modelname AS mname,
FROM phone_brands 
a LEFT OUTER JOIN phone_models b
ON a.id = b.phone_id
ORDER BY mname");

And then in php do something like:

$currentModel = "";

while($phones = $get_phones->fetch_assoc()){
    if($currentModel != $phones['mname']){
        echo $phones['mname'].'<br/>';
        $currentModel = $phones['mname'];
    }
    echo $phones['pname'];
}

Sorting on the database level is much faster and at the end, the result is the same. You can just read it in a PHP array and have it sorted.

$get_phones = $mysqli->query("
SELECT
    a.id,
    b.phone_id,
    a.phonename AS pname,
    b.modelname AS mname,
FROM phone_brands 
a LEFT OUTER JOIN phone_models b
ON a.id = b.phone_id
order by pname, mname");

SELECT
    a.id,
    b.phone_id,
    a.phonename AS pname,
    b.modelname AS mname,
FROM phone_brands AS a 
LEFT OUTER JOIN phone_models AS b
    ON a.id = b.phone_id
ORDER BY pname, mname DESC

That should do the job from what your question asks?

[edit]

I need to improve the code, i'm thinking using something like a foreach so it's more useable later than just order by :P – Simon Duun

Going on that comment, you could still use the order by in the query but do something like:

$phone_array = array();
while($phones = $get_phones->fetch_assoc()){
    $phone_array[$phones['pname']] =  $phones['pname'] . $phones['mname'];
}

ksort($phone_array);

foreach($phone_array as $phone_pname => $phone_value){
    echo $phone_pname . ' -> ' . $phone_value . "
";
}