The second way will be quicker and easier.
You can use SQL to connect to you DB and search and sort, for example:
SELECT *
FROM userData
WHERE user_age > 30
AND user_type = 'NORMAL'
ORDER BY username ASC
The hereinbefore inserted query will, assuming that you have the table setup appropriately, select all fields from the UserData table - but only records where the user is over 30 and is of type 'NORMAL'. The records are sorted by username, ascending.
SQL (Structured Query Language) allows you do setup these queries easily and simply. PHP can then grab the results of the query and display it in a table, or any HTML that you like, really.
Unsolved 
