SQL cross-table calculation in ASP.net - asp.net

Question

I'm hoping someone can help with a problem I can't wrap my limited knowledge around. I have two SQL queries like:
SELECT
SUM(Matrix.[ITEM1]) AS [ITEM1],
SUM(Matrix.[ITEM2]) AS [ITEM2]
FROM StoreList
INNER JOIN Matrix ON StoreList.[Store Number] = Matrix.[Store Number]
WHERE (StoreList.Region = '#Value')
SELECT
ITEMTYPES.type_description,
ITEMS.Quantity
FROM ITEMS
INNER JOIN ITEMTYPES ON ITEMS.type_id = ITEMTYPES.id
Now, what these do is return a list of values that I want to multiply together (for example, to get a final quantity for [ITEM1], multiply [ITEM1] by [Items.Quantity]. However the ITEMTYPES table holds a list of descriptions of ITEM (and primary key id), which is used for entering new items. The STORELIST table uses the descriptors in ITEMTYPES as column names(ie. The ItemTypes table has records called [Item1], [Item2]; the Column names in Matrix are also [Item1], [Item2]).
The question is this - from my limited experience (and I do mean limited - < 6months with SQL) there is no way to perform a calculation based upon column names - I would have to abstract out the totals in some way to another table, with additional fields for Region (this explains the sum() statements in query 1) and perform calculations that way - or does some have a more elegant idea?
Table Structures as per Laurence's request:
For Table [MATRIX]:
[Store Number] (PK, int, not null)
[ITEM1] (int, default 0)
[ITEM2] (int, default 0)
For Table [ITEMTYPES]:
[id] (PK, int, not null),
[ITEMTYPE] (nvarchar(50), not null)
Now, Example data (excuse any formatting issues!):
[MATRIX]
Store Number ITEM1 ITEM2
------------------------------
123456 1 15
678920 31 9
[ITEMTYPE]
id ITEMTYPE
------------------------------
1 ITEM1
2 ITEM2
Appreciate the response!

Answer 1

Ok so you have 2 results returned from these 2 queries into 2 different ordered pair lists or arrays... so you have the first result in the format of
//FROM THE MATRIX QUERY
array(
[0] => array(
"Store Number" => 123456,
"ITEM1" => 1,
"ITEM2" => 15
),
[1] => array(
"Store Number" => 678920,
"ITEM1" => 31,
"ITEM2" => 9
),
ETC...
)
//FROM YOUR ITEM QUERY
array(
[0] => array(
"type_description" => "ITEM1",
"quantity" => ???
),
[1] => array(
"type_description" => "ITEM2",
"quantity" => ???
)
ETC......
)
ok now you can do 2 foreach loops where you iterate through the 2 arrays
foreach(arrayMatrix as store){
foreach(arrayItems as item){
print "Store: "+ store['Store Number']+" ITEM: " + item['type_description']+" total: "+ (store[item['type_description']] * item['quantity']);
}
}
now I wrote this in psuedo code and Im not sure if you can translate this well into VB. With those 2 foreach or while loops or whatever you can databind the results to the grid or put them in another array or list... I hope this helps at all.