Even columns

Anon

Hello all,

I'm doing a project that is a grocery checklist type thing. We have a checklist that pulls items from the database, organizes them into categories, and divides it up into four columns for displaying.

The site is almost complete, except the fourth column is always too short. The powers above want the columns to be even or at least more even then they are now. One problem is the categories can't be split into two columns.

Here is the formula I use to calculate the columns:
if (($column_count >= $per_column) || (($category_count + 4) >= $per_column)) {
echo "</td><td valign=top>\n";
$column_count = 0;
}

column_count is the number of items have been echoed out in the current column. per_column is basically the number of total items being displayed divided by 4, to get an average number of items per category. category_count is the count for the current category.

Yes it's an ugly formula, but I'm not a math expert. I'd appreciate any help that anyone could offer!

Anon

Forgot to mention that an example can be seen at:

http://www.virtuaweb.net/~matt/grocery

Just click on a category and it will show you the columns I'm referring to.

Anon

Simple solution:
(Assuming mysql)

// in category any category

$mysql_link = mysql_connect("localhost","","");
$db = mysql_select_db("grocerydb",$mysql_link);
// dummy SQL to obtain total_num_rows below
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM grocerytable WHERE category = $category");
$total_num_rows = mysql_affected_rows
$counter = 0;
($mysql_link);

this should be done databasedriven as well

$foodstuff_array[] = "Beef";
$foodstuff_array[] = "Deli Meat";

more subsections into the array

for ($n=0;$n<count($foodstuff_array);$n++) {
// new db connection
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM grocerytable WHERE category = $category AND foodstuff = $foodstuff_array[$n]")
// then the while loop
while($fetch = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
if ($counter == (int($total_num_rows/4)) {
echo "</tr><tr>";
} else {
SHOW THE CHECKBOXES SIMPLY
}

$counter++;
}

Messy code - probably not working either - but it should give you some hints on how to solve it.
1) Find out the total amount of rows in the category
2) Set an array with each subsection of food
3) loop through each subsection
4) always keep a $counter
5) before you show the checkbox, test and see if 1/4 have been countered in the counter
6) be careful with loops (slows down)
7) good luck