Foreach php variable value create while loop

I have a table like this full of orders, each customer will have multiple orders:

Customer   ponumber quantity ..

customer1   234345     56
customer2   343454     34
customer1   w34234     54
customer5   332423     54

I'm trying to loop through each DISTINCT customer and print the corresponding orders with the following code.

<?php

include("php/database_connect.php");

  $query = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT customer FROM orders");
  $customer = mysql_fetch_array($query);

foreach($customer as $customers)
{

echo ' <li><h1>'. $customers . '</h1></li>';

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM orders WHERE misc='new' AND customer='$customers'       ORDER BY columnpos ASC ");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))

         {
         echo'  

         <li id="id_' . $row['id'] . '">
         <div class="card">

         <table>
         <tr>
         <td>' . $row['customer'] . '</td>
         <tr>
         <td>P/O: ' . $row['ponumber'] . '</td>
         </tr>
         <tr>
         <td>' . $row['partnumber'] . '</td>
         </tr>
         <tr>
         <td><b>' . $row['quantity'] . '</b> x ' . $row['foil'] . '</td>
         </tr>
         <tr>
         <td>' . $row['daterequired'] . '</td>
         </tr>
         <tr>
         <td>' . $row['prep'] . '</td>
         </tr>
         </table>
        <input class="hiddenid" type="hidden" value="' . $row['id'] . '" />
         <input class="hiddenquantity" type="hidden" value="' .     $row['quantity'] . '" />
         <input class="hiddenpartnumber" type="hidden" value="' .   $row['partnumber'] . '" />
         <input class="hiddenfoil" type="hidden" value=开发者_Python百科"' . $row['foil'] . '" />
         </div>
         </li>


         ';
         }
}
?>

However the above code currently prints:

customer1 234345
customer1 w34234

customer1 234345
customer1 w34234

which seems odd... its not going through each customer.

any help is greatly appreciated!

Make only one DB query (better performance) but process the results before looping over them:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM orders WHERE misc='new' ORDER BY customer ASC ");

$ordersByCustomer = array(); // nested array. 1. level: customers, 2. level: orders

while(($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))) {
    if(!array_key_exists($row['customer'], $ordersByCustomer)) {
        $ordersByCustomer[$row['customer']] = array();
    }
    $ordersByCustomer[$row['customer']][] = $row;
}

foreach($ordersByCustomer as $customer=>$orders) {
    echo ' <li><h1>'. $customer . '</h1></li>';
    foreach($orders as $order) {
        // rest of HTML code
    }
}

I also encourage you to use a better separation of HTML and PHP, like so, using the alternative syntax for control structures:

<?php foreach($ordersByCustomer as $customer=>$orders): ?>
    <li><h1><?php echo $customer; ?></h1></li>
    <?php foreach($orders as $order): ?>
        <li id="id_<?php echo $row['id'];?>">
            <div class="card">
                <table>
                    <tr><td><?php echo $order['customer']; ?></td></tr>
                    <!-- and so forth -->
    <?php endforeach; ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>

Btw, you are not generating valid HTML. li element must be contained in ul or ol elements.

use

while($customer = mysql_fetch_array($query){

instead of

$customer = mysql_fetch_array($query);

foreach($customer as $customers)
{