best way to sort AND have prev/next

[el_kab0ng]

So I know how to allow a user to sort based on their selection, and I also know how to use Prev/Next based on position counts...

So how would I use both?

Example:

Say I have it set to display a Next link if there are more than 10 records, and if there is less than 10 records on the next page, it displays a Prev link.

So I have 10 displayed, a next button gets generated, and say only 5 records get displayed on the next page, forcing a Prev link. Well, based on my field names, I allow my user to sort. But the problem arises when they go to the next page and try to sort. It displays the last ten records instead of sorting the last 5 that's displayed.

Am I making any sense? Am I headed in the wrong direction? How would YOU allow users to sort AND see only 10 records per page?

[el_kab0ng]

so you're telling me no one has ever attempted this?

[majik-sheff]

MySQL has facilities to do this:

Since I have no idea what your database contains, I just use a hypothetical contact list:

SELECT * from contacts ORDER BY last_name DESC LIMIT 50,10

OK. Here's the breakdown:

ORDER BY last_name tells MySQL to sort the results by the column last_name
DESC makes MySQL sort it in reverse (just leave it out for forward)
LIMIT is the magical item here, my example tells MySQL to start at the 50th item and return 10 results.

you can use mysql_num_rows() to see if the result is less than 10 (or whatever number you use) and generate your links from there.