TOGGLE... alternating row colours, HOW??

[metabeat]

Ok I'm pulling some rows from MySql, and I'm putting each row in a HTML table row. I basically want to alternate the rows' background colour, so row one will be for ex. blue, row two green, row three blue again, and so on...

I've set up variables for all the bgcolor tags, but what I can't figure out is how to toggle these variables between two value sets every time my while loop runs.

What I tried is:

	
if($toggle=1):
$toggle=2;
$dkcolour = "#669900";
$ltcolour = "#99FF00";
$hr = $hrclass[1];
				
elseif($toggle=2):
$toggle=1;
$dkcolour = "#006666";
$ltcolour = "#0099FF";
$hr = $hrclass[1];

endif;

It should be obvious why this doesn't work, the code checks for the toggle variable and toggles it, but then I'd need it to jump tp the next section and ignore the elseif statement (which just sets it back to 1)... I'm a newbie to programming in general so maybe there's a completely more intelligent way to do this....

Thx!

[jonsagara]

In your if() statements, you need to change "=" to "==". Otherwise, you're always setting $toggle to either 1 or 2, which always evaluates to TRUE. (You are using PHP, right?)

You can also use the modulus operator to test whether your toggle variable is even or odd:

$i = 0;
while(...)
{
...
$dkcolour = ($i%2) ? "#669900" : "#006666";
$ltcolour = ($i%2) ? "#99ff00" : "#0099ff";
$i++;
...
} 

[metabeat]

Great, thx alot, changing to == did the trick. Is there any reason why I would want to do it the other way? I mean, is it a better way to code it or does it amount to the same thing?

[jonsagara]

Fewer instructions. The end result is the same.

[Robo]

Using the ternary operator method also speeds up the script, but the reason I use it simply 'cos it's one line.

[Flawless_koder]

* looks in JS forum ... looks here ... *

Similarities i see!

There was a large post in JS (top of the forum)
which harped on about this kind of thing... maybe
the two overlap a little


Flawless

[metabeat]

Would someone be so kind as to explain the actual funciton of the 'modulus' operator. I want to incorporate this method in my code but i hate to write code i don't actually understand!

Thx!

[jonsagara]

The modulus operator (%) returns the remainder of a division operation.

For example, 5/2 = 2 remainder 1, right? % returns the 1 of that division operation.

[jonsagara]

Forgot this part:

In our case, dividing any number by two and looking at the remainder will tell you whether or not that number is odd or even:

1%2 = 1
2%2 = 0
3%2 = 1
4%2 = 0
5%2 = 1

...

and on and on and on...