Report totals for non-numerical data

Question

Hello all,
I am trying to update a site for an auto shop.  The site is in PHP, MySQL.
What they have in the database is records for each customer that comes in to their shop.  So, they will have John Q. Public having multiple entries for the date he came in, and what was done to the car.  They want a report that will display the totals for each item that John Public has had done.
So for example the report would be displaying the following:
                     breaks             oil change            shocks              tune up     total visits
John Public       2                       4                        0                       2               8
Jack Private       1                       6                       4                        8              19
The database has this information in it to get the above report:
Name             Date             Work          Cust. Review
John Public    02-05-2007    breaks        satisfied
John Public    03-15-2008    breaks        satisfied
John Public    01-09-2008    oil change   satisfied
Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

Well, I have done a lot of playing around, and got it to work.  Although, I don't completely understand why it works.  If someone would be kind enough to give me some insight, I would greatly appreciate it.  I have not done JOINS in the past, so I'm trying to learn.
This is what I had originally:
<?php
//Query the unique works to generate the headers
$query = "SELECT DISTINCT reason FROM `call_log` ORDER BY reason";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
while($record = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
$reasons[] = $record['reason'];
//Start the report table including headers
$report = "<table width=\"75%\" cellpadding=\"5\" cellspacing=\"5\" border=\"1\">\n";
$report .= "  <tr><th>Store</th><th>" . implode('</th><th>', $reasons) . "</th></tr>\n";
//Query the records
$query = "SELECT t2.location, t2.reason, COUNT(t1.reason) as total
          FROM (
              SELECT tt1.location, tt2.reason
              FROM (SELECT DISTINCT location FROM `call_log`) tt1,
                   (SELECT DISTINCT reason FROM `call_log`) tt2) t2
          LEFT JOIN `call_log` t1
          ON t1.location = t2.location AND t1.reason = t2.reason
          GROUP BY t2.reason, t2.location
          ORDER BY t2.location, t2.reason";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
And this is what I changed it to:
<?php
//Query the unique works to generate the headers
$query = "SELECT DISTINCT call_log.reason, call_reason.reason_id, call_reason.reason
   FROM call_log LEFT JOIN call_reason
   ON call_log.reason = call_reason.reason_id
   ORDER BY call_log.reason";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
while($record = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
$reasons[] = $record['reason'];
// Query to get the top headers to have the correct column span
$query = "SELECT COUNT(*) AS reason_id FROM call_reason";
// Execute Query for the correct column span
$result = mysql_query($query);
// Get the result of query named count
$count = mysql_result($result,0);
//Start the report table including subheaders for the reason totals
$report = "<table width=\"75%\" cellpadding=\"5\" cellspacing=\"5\" border=\"1\">\n";
$report .= "  <tr><th style=\"border-color:#000;\">Store</th><th colspan=\"$count\" style=\"border-color:#000;\">Reasons for the Call</th></tr>\n";
$report .= "  <tr><th></th><th>" . implode('</th><th>', $reasons) . "</th></tr>\n";
//Query the records
$query = "SELECT t2.location, t2.reason, COUNT(t1.reason) as total
          FROM (
              SELECT tt1.location, tt2.reason
              FROM (SELECT DISTINCT location FROM `call_log`) tt1,
                   (SELECT DISTINCT reason FROM `call_log`) tt2) t2
          LEFT JOIN `call_log` t1
          ON t1.location = t2.location AND t1.reason = t2.reason
          GROUP BY t2.reason, t2.location
          ORDER BY t2.location, t2.reason";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
It's the first section of:
$query = "SELECT DISTINCT call_log.reason, call_reason.reason_id, call_reason.reason
   FROM call_log LEFT JOIN call_reason
   ON call_log.reason = call_reason.reason_id
   ORDER BY call_log.reason";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
while($record = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
$reasons[] = $record['reason'];
that I'm wodering about.  Since I didn't realize that I defined the vairable for call_reason.reason how did it know to display the data from that field?  I know I joined the tables, but why would it not display the call_reason.reason_id?
Thank you very much.