PHP - How to display data from array into a tree or table?

@exodream

Thank you for you comment.

This is my new answer to your question, it avoids empty lines, if you need to avoid empty coloumns or need something else let me know.

<?php 

        //make the labels
        $labels=array('Gattung','Untergattung','Sektion','Untersektion','Serie',
    'Unterserie','Art','Unterart','Varietaet','SubVarietaet','Form','Unterform',
    'SpezialForm','Hybride','Blendling','Sorte' );  

    // Make a MySQL Connection
    mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "") or die(mysql_error());

    //select database
    mysql_query("drop database if exists `test_db`;")or die(mysql_error());  
    mysql_query("create database `test_db`;")or die(mysql_error());  
    mysql_select_db("test_db") or die(mysql_error());

    //create table 
    mysql_query(" drop table if exists `test_table`;")or die(mysql_error());  


    mysql_query("   
    CREATE TABLE `test_table` (
        `Gattung` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Untergattung` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Sektion` char(30)  NULL  , 
        `Untersektion` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Serie` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Unterserie` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Art` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Unterart` char(30)  NULL  ,    
        `Varietaet` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `SubVarietaet` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Form` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Unterform` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `SpezialForm` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Hybride` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Blendling` char(30)  NULL  ,
        `Sorte` char(30)  NULL   
    )
    COLLATE='latin1_swedish_ci'
    ENGINE=InnoDB;") or die(mysql_error());  



     mysql_query("INSERT INTO `test_table`  VALUES 
     ('Gattung_A',null,null,null,null,null,'Art_A',null,null,null,'Form_A',null,null,null,null,null  ) ") 
     or die(mysql_error());    

     mysql_query("INSERT INTO `test_table`  VALUES 
     ('Gattung_A',null,null,null,null,null,'Art_A',null,null,null,'Form_A',null,null,null ,null,null ) ") 
     or die(mysql_error());    

     mysql_query("INSERT INTO `test_table`  VALUES 
     ('Gattung_B',null,null,null,null,null,'Art_C',null,'Variant_A',null,null,null,null,null,null,null ) ") 
     or die(mysql_error());   

     mysql_query("INSERT INTO `test_table`  VALUES 
     (null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null ) ") 
     or die(mysql_error());   


     mysql_query("INSERT INTO `test_table`  VALUES 
     ('Gattung_Q',null,null,null,null,null,'Art_C',null,'Variant_A',null,'Form_W',null,null,null,null,null ) ") 
     or die(mysql_error());   

     mysql_query("INSERT INTO `test_table`  VALUES 
     ('Gattung_Q',null,'test','test','test','test','Art_S','test','Variant_Y','test','Form_H','test','test','test','test','last' ) ") 
     or die(mysql_error());   


        //get result        
        $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `test_table` ;")
           or die(mysql_error());   



    normal_display();      
    non_empty_row_display();        
    non_empty_column_display(); 

    function non_empty_row_display()
    { 
        //get data
        global $result;
        $final_array=array();   

        global $result;
        mysql_data_seek ($result , 0);

        print '<b><br><h2>TABLE: 2 NON EMPTY VALUES OF EACH ROW</h2></b>';
        print '<table border=7 bordercolor=orange >';
        $index=0;
        $color=array('#66CCFF','#00FF00');
        //for every row of the table
        while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result))
        {
            $current_row='';
            //for every coloumn
            foreach ($row as  $value) 
                //if value is not null
                if($value!=null)//then keep it 
                    $current_row .=  $value.' | ';

            if($current_row!='')
                echo '<tr bgcolor=',$color[$index%2],'><th>ROW ',$index++,'</th><td>',$current_row,'</td></tr>',
                        '<tr><td colspan=2 height=5 bgcolor=pink></td></tr>'; 
        }//while
        echo '</table>'; 

    }//function


    function normal_display()
    {
        print '<b><h2>TABLE:1 Normal display</h2></b>';
        print '<table border=1><tr>';
        global $labels;
        foreach($labels as $value)
            echo '<th>',$value,'</th>';
        print '</tr>';
        global $result;
        while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) 
        {
            print '<tr>';
            foreach($row as $value)
                echo '<td>',$value,'&nbsp;</td>';
            print '</tr>';
        }//while
        print '</table>';
     }//function



     function non_empty_column_display()
    { 
        //get data
        global $result;   
        mysql_data_seek ($result , 0);

        //for every row of the table
        $final_column=array();
        while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) 
            //for every coloumn
            foreach ($row as  $key => $value) 
                //if value is not null
                if($value!=null)
                    //if $final_column[$key] exists append value to it, otherwise assign value 
                    $final_column[$key]=(isset($final_column[$key]))?$final_column[$key].=$value.'<br>':$value.' <br> ';


        echo '<br><br><h2>Array:1 </h2>The coloumn with index 6 is placed before the one with index 2 in this array 
        because its first non empty value is fetched earlier. Check for your self:<br>';
        echo '<pre>',strip_tags(print_r($final_column,true)),'</pre>';


        //for each mysql table coloumn name
        global $labels;
        foreach($labels as $key => $value)
            //if it exists in the result
            if(array_key_exists($key,$final_column))
                //keep it
                $label_header=(isset($label_header))?$label_header.='<th>'.$value.'</th>':'<th>'.$value.'</th>';


        ksort($final_column);
        echo '<br><br><h2>Array:2 </h2>We can order this. Check for your self:<br>';
        echo '<pre>',strip_tags(print_r($final_column,true)),'</pre>';

        echo '<br><b><h2>TABLE:3 </h2>THIS IS A TABLE WITH NON EMPTY COLOUMNS<b>';
        echo '<table border=1>',$label_header,'<tr>';
        foreach($final_column as $value)
                echo '<td valign=top>',$value,'</td>';
        echo '</tr></table>';



    }//function

    ?>

I have already fixed lines 147 and 161 (for previous example), it was a warning, we have to check if a variable exists before concatenation, in your example it would be:

147:

$final_column[$key]=(isset($final_column[$key]))?$final_column[$key].=$value.'<br>':$value.' <br> ';

161:

$label_header=(isset($label_header))?$label_header.='<th>'.$value.'</th>':'<th>'.$value.'</th>';

1) if you it is possible to do the sorting / grouping / aggregation in SQL then do it in SQL - not in PHP. SQL and rDBMS are designed and optimized for this.

2) PHP does not have multidimesnional arrays - they are hierarchical.

3) if you don't want nulls in your array don't put them there

4) If you have a primary key for the result set in your data use that for your array key

while ($r=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    foreach($r as $key=>$val) {
      if ($val || $val===0 || $val===false) {
         $array[$r['Art']][$key]=$val;
      }
    }
}