How to create an alphabetized drop down menu in PHP

I'm trying to re-write this code so that the drop down menu is alphabetized:

$activeProjectDropdown.="<option value=''>Select Project</option>";
$getInfo = "SELECT id, customer, job_name, haul_info 
            FROM dispatch_jobs 
            WHERE (:mydate BETWEEN delivery_date AND delivery_date_end) 
            ORDER BY customer, job_name";

$result=DB::run($getInfo, ['mydate' => $myDate]);
while($row=$result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOTH)) {
	if(!empty($row['haul_info'])) {
		$haulinfo = "($row[haul_info])";
	}else{
		$haulinfo = "";
	}
	
	if($checkit == $row['id']){
		$woot = 'selected=selected';
	}else{
		$woot = '';
	}
	
	$customerName = pdo_getName('name', 'customer', "$row[customer]");
	$activeProjectDropdown.="<option value='$row[customer]|$row[id]' $woot>$customerName $haulinfo</option>\n";
}

In this code the query returns some rows from the database where customer is a numeric code which isn't in any kind of alphabetical order. Further down in the code a function called pdo_getName is called which takes a column of name table of customer and the id from $row['customer'] and queries the database, returning the stringified name of the customer. Because the name isn't being retrieved until later on down the loop I'm having trouble figuring out a way that I can alphabetize the $activeProjectDropdown. I've tried putting the $customerName and drop down code into an associative array, then sort that by $customerName and concat everything into a string, but that didn't work because there are duplicate keys. Down that same path, I could potentially have a nested array but I figure there must an easier solution I'm missing. Thanks for the help!

write a JOIN query and get all the data in one query then you can sort on the customers name as I think you are asking to do.

This will improve performance as well as simplify the code.

$getInfo = "SELECT dj.id, dj.customer, dj.job_name, dj.haul_info 
                    c.name
            FROM dispatch_jobs dj
                LEFT JOIN customer c ON c.id = dj.customer
            WHERE (:mydate BETWEEN dj.delivery_date AND dj.delivery_date_end) 
            ORDER BY c.name, dj.job_name";
$result=DB::run($getInfo, ['mydate' => $myDate]);

while($row=$result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOTH)) {
    if(!empty($row['haul_info'])) {
        $haulinfo = "($row[haul_info])";
    }else{
        $haulinfo = "";
    }

    if($checkit == $row['id']){
        $woot = 'selected=selected';
    }else{
        $woot = '';
    }

    $activeProjectDropdown.="<option value='$row[customer]|$row[id]' $woot>$row[name] $haulinfo</option>\n";
}

Try this:

SELECT ... ORDER BY customer ASC, job_name

This sorts everything by costumer (ascending) first, and then by job_name (ascending, which is the default) whenever the costumer fields for two or more rows are equal.

more info here