two column text

Falcov

I'm trying to build a directory for a website. Kinda like Yahoo's directory page where it lists the various categories. But, I'm having trouble putting together a script to retrieve the categorie list, cut it in half (or so if it's an odd number) and insert the results into a two columned table, so it looks even.

Right now I got:

/* mySQL Connection */
mysql_connect($dbserver,$dbuser,$dbuserpassword) or DIE("Cannot connect to server.");
@mysql_select_db($dbname) or DIE("Cannot select database");

$result = mysql_query("SELECT id,coltest_value FROM col_test");
while($data[]=mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
	print '11 Entries - Values 1,2,3,4,5 & a,b,c,d,e,f';
	$totrows = mysql_num_rows($result);
	$half = ceil($totrows/2.0);
}

I havn't gotten any further. I've added:

echo 'Half: ' .$half;
echo '<br>totrows: ' .$totrows;

To see what the values of the variables are, and I get this:

11 Entries - Values 1,2,3,4,5 & a,b,c,d,e,f
Half: 6
totrows: 11

eleven times....

So, I the script runs correctly, problem is, I don't know how to go about getting it to print out the results of the table. I've been thinking of a while or for loop, but not sure how to impliment one. Anyone have an idea?

diego25

Why not something like this?

$current = 1;
print "<tr>";
while($data=mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

if ($current%2==0) {
  print "</tr><tr>";
}
print "<td>" . $data["someField"] . "</td>";
}
print "</tr>";

Diego

Falcov

that would print it into one row or column...

the database only has one column, the script will need to split the column in half...so

DBCOLUMN
1
2
3
4
5
a
b
c
d
e
f

would become
WEBCOLUMN
1 b
2 c
3 d
4 e
5 f
a

Weedpacket

Because HTML has no concept of a "table column", it would be easiest to split the list into two arrays, and then fish the bits out you want in order.

$count = however many results there are
$half = ceil($count*0.5);
Done with ceil and *0.5 so that
the first column will be the larger
(if there are an odd number)
for $i = 0; $i<$count; ++$i

  if($i<=$half)
   Still filling the first column
   $first_column[]=$result[$i]
  else
   Now filling the second column
   $second_column[]=$result[$i]

end for

Then with the results thus collected into the appropriate columns, it's easy to display them.

<table>
for $i = 0; $i<$half; ++$i
  <tr><td>$first_column[$i]</td><td>$second_column[$i]</td></tr>
</table>

Falcov

Thanks for your reply 🙂

I put in the code, and it worked, partially hehe.

Now I got:


$result = mysql_query("SELECT id,coltest_value FROM col_test");
while($data=mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
$count = mysql_num_rows($result);
$half = ceil($count*0.5);
for ($i=0; $i<$count; ++$i) {

if ($i <= $half) {
	$first_column[$i] = $data[$i];
} else {
	$second_column[$i] = $data[$i];
}
}
print '<table>';
for ($i=0; $i<$half; ++$i) {
print '<tr><td>'.$first_column[$i].'</td><td>'.$second_column[$i].'</td></tr>';
}
print '</table>';
}

The data in the table is still: 1,2,3,4,5,a,b,c,d,e,f (in order) I'm guessing the first number listed in each pair is the ID and the second is the coltest_value column.

When I run the script, I get this:

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

5

5

6

a

7

b

8

c

9

d

10

e

11

f

When you view the source, theres a whole bunch of empty <tr><td> tags so I dunno if that could be something.

If you want to view the script at work:
http://www.codercastle.com/coltest3.php

essexboy

Will this do?

              <table width="476" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5">
                <tr> 
                  <td class="copy" width="50%" valign="top"> 
                    <?php

$result1 = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT recipe_mealtype_1 FROM slimmer_recipes ORDER BY recipe_mealtype_1 LIMIT 0,9");
while ( $row1 = mysql_fetch_array($result1) )
{
$meal_name1 = $row1[0];
echo"<a href=\"/browse.php?type=$meal_name1\" class=\"link\" title=\"$meal_name1\">$meal_name1</a><br>";
}

?>
</td>
<td width="50%" valign="top" class="copy">
<?php

$result2 = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT recipe_mealtype_1 FROM slimmer_recipes ORDER BY recipe_mealtype_1 LIMIT 9,18");
while ( $row2 = mysql_fetch_array($result2) )
{
$meal_name2 = $row2[0];
echo"<a href=\"/browse.php?type=$meal_name2\" class=\"link\" title=\"$meal_name1\">$meal_name2</a><br>";
}

?>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

essexboy

you know the max number of entries in col1, if not you can find out. This gets divided by 2 and u use 'limit' to stop the sql at 15 or whatever. after which u print the html for close/open table tags and start again, this time from where u left off...

oli

Weedpacket

This is why:

while($data=mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
$count = mysql_num_rows($result);
$half = ceil($count*0.5);
for ($i=0; $i<$count; ++$i) {

Get all your data out of the result set; finish the while loop; get the $count (which can be done as above, or just look at count($data), now that it's all there) and $half; and then start the following loop.