Divine way of listing?

[Davve]

I'm a PHP newbie. How can you tell? Well, I have this easy (stupid?) question for you...

I have my MySQL database with a table with four fields. ID, field1, field2 and field3. Now I want to just list these fields in a nice HTML table. I'm trying to come up with a good while, do..while or for to do this. But my own tries generate so much code. There's got to be one divine way of doing this.

What's the divine way?

I could of course use my own code, but I feel that because I'm still a newbie it would be better to look at this super code and use it!




Edit: my "bad" code
Which, by the way, isn't working. My for loop works, but my echoes show only: Resource id #3, Resource id #4 and Resource id #3. Why is that?

<table border=0 cellspacing=2 cellpadding=2 width=600>
    <tr>
    <td align=center width=200>
        table_variable        
        </td>
            <td align=center width=200>
            table_innehall
            </td>
                <td align=center width=200>
                table_innehall_flash
                </td>
    </tr>

<?php
$i = 1;

$table_variabel = mysql_query("SELECT variabel FROM text WHERE ID = '$i'");
$table_innehall = mysql_query("SELECT innehall FROM text WHERE ID = '$i'");
$table_innehall_flash = mysql_query("SELECT innehall_flash FROM text WHERE ID = '$i'");

for ($i = 1; $i <= 3; $i++) {

?>
    <tr>
        <td align=center>
        <?php echo $table_variabel ?>            
        </td>
            <td align=center>
            <?php echo $table_innehall ?>            
            </td>
                <td align=center>
                <?php echo $table_innehall_flash ?>            
                </td>
    </tr>


<?php

}

?>

</table>

[.[:] : paVel : [:].]

Hey

<?
$db=mysql_connect("HOST", "USERNAME", "PASSWORD");
if (!$db)
{
   echo "Error: Could not connect to database!"
   exit;
}
mysql_select_db("YOU_DB_NAME");
$query="select * from TABLE_NAME ....condisions...";
$result=mysql_query($query);
$number_of_results=mysql_num_rows($result);

echo "<p>$number_of_results number of records found</p>";

for ($i=0; $i<$number_of_results; $i++)
{
$row=mysql_fetch_array($result);
echo "<p>ID</p>";
echo "<p>field1</p>";
echo "<p>field2</p>";
echo "<p>field3</p>";
}
?>

I think that helps!

U can find more stuff on:
www.phpbuilder.com
http://www.devarticles.com

[anthony_irl]

Originally posted by .[:] : paVel : [:].
Hey

<?
$db=mysql_connect("HOST", "USERNAME", "PASSWORD");
if (!$db)
{
   echo "Error: Could not connect to database!"
   exit;
}
mysql_select_db("YOU_DB_NAME");
$query="select * from TABLE_NAME ....condisions...";
$result=mysql_query($query);
$number_of_results=mysql_num_rows($result);

echo "<p>$number_of_results number of records found</p>";

for ($i=0; $i<$number_of_results; $i++)
{
$row=mysql_fetch_array($result);
echo "<p>$row['ID']</p>";
echo "<p>$row['field1']</p>";
echo "<p>$row['field2']</p>";
echo "<p>$row['field3']</p>";
}
?>

I think that helps!

U can find more stuff on:
www.phpbuilder.com
http://www.devarticles.com

Just a minor correction with the field values.

[Davve]

Thanks!

I've changed to my values and done a bit of stowing:

<?php
mysql_select_db("davve2");
$query="select * from text";
$result=mysql_query($query);
$number_of_results=mysql_num_rows($result);

echo "<p>$number_of_results number of records found</p>";

for ($i=0; $i<$number_of_results; $i++)
{
$row=mysql_fetch_array($result); ?>

<p><?php echo $row['variabel'];?></p>
<p><?php echo $row['innehall'];?></p>
<p><?php echo $row['innehall_flash'];?></p>
<?php }
?>

[Davve]

Would you please care to do some explaining of what it is that's really happening?

mysql_fetch_array - It takes each column and place it in each entry in an array, yes?

But I don't get how it "changes row". I mean, sure, there is an for loop but I don't understand how it changes row.

[Klav]

mysql_fetch_array() places each row into an associative array and then, if you use a for/while loop, it loops through the array one by one until it reaches the end. It's just a nice feature of PHP.

[Davve]

Well, I understand parts, but not all.


What I don't understand is what it really is that tells the mysql_fetch_array() to go to the next row! Take a look at my script. The only counter is $i. But mysql_fetch_array() doesn't use $i.

The script works and I find it strange. My logic tells me that it shouldn't do like this:

row1 - field1 || row1 - field2 || row1 - field3
row2 - field1 || row2 - field2 || row2 - field3


But rather this:

row1 - field1 || row1 - field2 || row1 - field3
row1 - field1 || row1 - field2 || row1 - field3


I want to know what it is that causes the mysql_fetch_array() to understand that it should jump to the next row in each loop. I can't see what it is that does this. Do I make sense?

Even though the script works fine, I still want to know why it works!

[Klav]

It's simple. The for loop loops through the array until it reaches the number specified in $amount_of_results. $amount_of_results is determined by the amount of rows your select query returned.

The pointer in mysql_fetch_array() is moved forward one row for everytime it is iterated and, therefore, displays the data a row at a time. Get it?

[Davve]

Originally posted by Klav
The pointer in mysql_fetch_array() is moved forward one row for everytime it is iterated

AHH! I checked the PHP documentation, which is really great btw, but I didn't get that.

Thanks! I'm really grateful!

[Klav]

No problem.