Specifying number of <td> before a <tr&gt

[Anon]

Hi -
I am a little stumped on a problem with filling a table with mysql data, with respect to the table layout.

My table is to take a simple form:
<form>
<table border=1>
<tr>
<td><B> header 1<B>
<br>
<select multiple>
<option> subhead 1.1 </option>
<option> subhead 1.2 </option>
<option> subhead 1.3 </option>
</br>
</td>
<td><B> header 2<B>
<br>
<select multiple>
<option> subhead 2.1 </option>
<option> subhead 2.2 </option>
<option> subhead 2.3 </option>
</br>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

where header information comes from mysql_query($header, $db) query, and subheader information comes from a mysql_query($subheader, $db) query.

I've had no problem (!) doing this, but my problem is that I have 20 header entries (and rising) - thus my table is 20 cells wide. What I would like to have is the parser to return the first 5 rows, then insert a <tr> print rows 6-10 etc.

I guess I have to use the limit function in the first table query (for the header information), but am totally lost as to where to insert it. The relevent exert from my code, if someone could follow it and help....

echo ("<form>");
echo ("<table><tr>");

	while ($dept =mysql_fetch_row($dept_query)) {
		$query = ("SELECT cat_id, cat_name, dept_id FROM categories WHERE dept_id='$dept[0]' ORDER BY cat_id");
		$cat_query= mysql_query($query, $dbconnect);
		if (!$cat_query) {
			mysql_error();
			exit();
		}
		echo ("<td valign=TOP align=center><b>".$dept[1]."</b>");
		echo ("<br>");
		echo ("<select size=10 multiple name=\"class_id\">");
		while ($cat=mysql_fetch_row($cat_query)) {
			echo ("<option value=\"$cat[2].$cat[0]\">$cat[1]");
		}
		echo ("</option>");
		echo ("</td>");	
	}
echo ("</tr></table>");

[[deleted]]

"What I would like to have is the parser to return the first 5 rows, then insert a <tr> print rows 6-10 etc."

You just answered your own question;
Simply add a counter to count how many TDs you printed. When it reaches 5, print the HTML to end the TR and start a new TR, and reset the counter back to zero.

[Anon]

lol - I was just coming back to reply to say don't bother as I had a workaround. Damn you were quick!

Still, tis far better than my ugly counter - I didn't do a reset, but to say
if ($i==5 || $i==10 ||$i ==15 ...)

and was thinking it was darn ugly, and not very practical, but was sufficient for now.

Note to self - always reset the counter, rather than let it run away...!

cheers

[[deleted]]

Your method would be usefull if you had different numbers of TDs on different rows,
for example to fit a layout where there is a large picture on the top right, you could make the first 2 rows count only two cells and the rest 5:

if ($i==2 || $i==4 || $i=9 || $i=14)

[Anon]

actually, your method isn't a poor one, you just need to modify your logic a little.

use this:

if (($i % 5) == 0)

that way, your number can go as high as you want. and you don't have to take the time to reset the counter. :-)

'course, eventually, you may have to reset the counter anyway. ;-)

[[deleted]]

Interesting trivia: which is faster, comparing two numbers and resetting a counter once every 5 iterations or doing a modulus operation every iteration? :-)

[Anon]

Good trivia question. It's like "which is faster, seeing if the number of returned db results is nonzero, or seeing if it's greater than zero". The two are equivalent if the returned value is nonnegative.