grouping query results

Hello everyone,

In a PHP / Postgresql application I have to make a lot of lists like
this:

THE DATA STRUCTURE
employee_number, employee_name, department

THE OUTPUT
------------------------------------
employee_number employee_name

department X
1 Johnson
22 Jackson
subtotal: 2 employees

department Y
222 Smith
3 Doe
44 Jameson
subtotal: 3 employees

grand total: 5 employees
------------------------------------

I see 2 ways to solve this:

- use SELECT for the detail lines and SELECT COUNT (*) for the (sub)
totals

- SELECT the whole lot and let PHP do the grouping and counting

The second solution seems old fashioned to me and the first has a
catch: all queries have to be made within a single transaction.

I have the feeling that this is a very common question, how do you
people handle it? I looked at a lot of script sites, but no luck.

Thanks for any ideas / feedback!