Display sorted MYSQL database on website using PHP

I am planning to improve the member pages section on my website. I have the data in a MYSQL database.

I want to sort out the data alphabetically based on the users' First name. Presently the link to each user's member page is being displayed on the same page randomly (a colleague helped me out with that part. I am not very good with PHP and MYSQL). However, as the database is increasing the page is taking a long time to load.

Hence I wish to sort out the members into different HTML pages for ones with first names beginning with A, another one for B, and so on. I know I will require some PHP for that but I am a bit confused.

Also, will doing this segregation compromise the security aspect by any chance?

Thanks for your help in advance

 

Let's say you want to list ALL First Names in the table "People" in alphabetical order with the first letter beginning with A. You would use:

SELECT firstname, lastname FROM People WHERE firstname WHERE LIKE 'a%' ORDERBY firstname ASC;

"ORDERBY" sorts. ASC would be Ascend. DESC would be DESCEND.

"LIKE" is a WHERE operator that searches for a pattern. The "%" is like the asterisk "*" which tells mysql "look for anything after this symbol"

 

SELECT * FROM users WHERE first_name LIKE "$firstLetter%" ORDER BY users ASC

Code (markup):

Edit: NetStar apparently was faster than me ..

 

Got it. Thank you so much for your help both of you

 

I placed an extra WHERE in mine.. just disregard it