Output into multiple columns

Anon

I've done some searching on this in here, but the solutions I've read of seemed very query intensive. Hoping if I ask the question anew that someone will have a clever answer 🙂

I want to display the results of a query into 3 equal columns in my html (or as equal as can be). Like so:

1 6 11
2 7 12
3 8 13
4 9 14
5 10

(numbers equal the one thing that I want to display, which in this case would be a single word. It could be any number of results, I just used 14 results to show what I wanted in this instance)

The function would have to know how many total results there are, and then break those results into three groups, and then display them as shown above. Any tips or snippets of code on how to do this?

rrijnders

Load your query results into an array. Once you do that you will also know how many results you have.

$tempval = $numResults / 3;
$jumpval = (int) $tempval;

print "<TABLE>";

$idx = 0;
while ($idx <= $jumpval) {
 print "<TR>";
 $offset=$idx;
 for ($i = 1; $i <= 3; $i++) {
  print "<TD>";
  if ($offset > $numResults) {
   print "&nbsp;";
  }
  else {
   print $data[$offset];
  }
  print "</TD>";
  $offset = $offset + $jumpval;
 }
$idx++;
}

print "</TABLE>";

...or something to that effect should get you what you want.

-- Rich

Anon

You'll want to put your values into an array, count them, then push these values onto a multidimensional array, with the key being the HTML column number (or whatever you want).

The trick will be making sure that you have something in the array for the visibly blank table data sections, as this will reserve the space for them. You can't use a static key for this as pushing data onto the same entry just overwrites the previous data. Just use some random (or incrementing) value, then when you print your table rows check for these bogus values and print an HTML non-breaking space.

Sort of a pain!

Anon

Hmm. It doesn't like that. I get the following error:

Fatal error: Unsupported operand types in /home/groups/o/or/orodruin/htdocs/modules/Encyclopedia/index.php on line 112

Line 112 is the bit where you divide by 3. Here's my code. I'm sure I did something wrong 😉 (all variables are defined elsewhere, so no worries there)

$result = mysql_query("select * from ".$prefix."_encyclopedia WHERE term LIKE '$get%' AND vid=$vid ORDER BY term ASC");
$termlist = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$tempval = $termlist / 3;
$jumpval = (int) $tempval;
}

echo "<table width=\"200\" align=\"center\">";
echo "<br><b>Results for the letter $get</b><br><br>";
$idx = 0;
while ($idx <= $jumpval) {
print "<TR>";
$offset=$idx;
for ($i = 1; $i <= 3; $i++) {
print "<TD> <a href=\"modules.php?op=modload&amp;name=$ModName&amp;file=index&amp;action=DisplayTerm&amp;vid=$vid&amp;id=".$termlist[id]."\">".$termlist[term]."</a>";
if ($offset > $termlist) {
print "&nbsp;";
}
else {
print $data[$offset];
}
print "</TD>";
$offset = $offset + $jumpval;
}
$idx++;
}

echo "</table><br>";

rrijnders

You are trying to divide an array.
You first have to get the number of rows in your result in order to calculate the jump value. Then you have to put all of the results into an array. Since you are already using <b>mysql_fetch_array()</b> to put the <b>columns</b> into an array, your data array will end up being a 2-dimensional array of rows and columns.

=======================

$result = mysql_query("select * from ".$prefix."_encyclopedia WHERE term LIKE '$get%' AND vid=$vid ORDER BY term ASC");

// calculate jumb value
$tempval = $mysql_numrows($result) / 3;
$jumpval = (int) $tempval;

// put data into array
$y = 0;
while($termlist = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
 $data[$y]= $termlist;
 $y++
}

echo "<br>Results for the letter $get<br><br>";

// build table
echo "<table width=\"200\" align=\"center\">";

$idx = 0;
while ($idx <= $jumpval) {

  print "<TR>";
  $offset=$idx;

  for ($i = 1; $i <= 3; $i++) {

   print "<TD>";

   if ($offset > $jumbval) {
    print "&nbsp;";
   }
   else {
   print "<a href=\"modules.php?op=modload&name=$ModName&file=index&action=DisplayTerm&vid=$vid&id=". $data[$offset]['id']."\">".$data[$offset]['term']."</a>";
   }

   print "</TD>";

  }

  $offset = $offset + $jumpval;

  $idx++;
} // end while loop

echo "</table><br>";

=======================

I don't know where you are getting <b>$ModName</b> or <b>$vid</b> are. If they are also coming out of the result row, then you will also have to change those to:

<b>$data[$offset]['ModName']</b>
and
<b>$data[$offset]['vid']</b>

respectively.

HTH
-- Rich