[Resolved] loops and arrays

mzanimephp

Hi, I am trying to make a "somewhat" dynamic table for my navigation. And basically I want to have a column before the column containing a list of links, and inside this first column a little arrow (image) which will point to the page (link) which the user is on - if the user is on that particular page.

Sounds simple right? Well I started my script and got stuck. It seems to be just repeating the row over and over again without stopping, plus the concatenation doesn't seem to be outputting the contents from the array - what the heck is going on?!

<table width="180" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
  <tr> 
	<td bgcolor="#00458A" height="18" colspan="2" class="whitenote">&nbsp;Topics:</td>
  </tr>
  <tr> 
	<td bgcolor="#E1F0FF" height="9" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #003366" colspan="2"> 
	  Click on one of the topics below and explore.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr> 
	<td width="23" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" height="1" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #006699" nowrap>&nbsp;<img hspace="3" src="images/expand.gif" width="9" height="9" alt=""> 
	</td>
	<td height="1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #006699"><b>Home</b></td>
  </tr>

<?php

 $navigation = array(
   "nav"  => array('/av/index.php','/am/index.php','/asia/index.php','/experiments2.php','/shots/index.php','/sl/index.php'),
   "link" => array('movies','music','j-pop','wallpapers','screenshots','ftp hosts'),
);

while($navigation != $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']) {
    echo 
  "<tr>\n 
	<td width=\"23\" align=\"center\" valign=\"middle\" nowrap bgcolor=\"#ECF5FF\" class=\"bluebelow\">&nbsp;</td>\n
	<td width=\"100%\" nowrap bgcolor=\"#ECF5FF\" class=\"bluebelow\"><a href=\" " . $navigation["nav"] . " \" class=\"leftnav\"> " . $navigation["link"] . " </a></td>\n
  </tr>\n";
}

?>

  <tr> 
	<td width="23" height="2" align="center" valign="middle" nowrap bgcolor="#ECF5FF" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #006699">&nbsp; 
	</td>
	<td height="2" bgcolor="#ECF5FF" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #006699">&nbsp; </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Here's the URL of the page I was working with too. As you cansee its not working as-is. http://www.mzanime.com/experiments2.php Any help would be much appreciated.

rohithmr

Hey mZ,
I am not sure what exactly you wanted to do, but dis what i got: You want to display a table of links with an arrow image pointing to the page they are currently on. But that doest make sense, cuz wont the user always b on the page where the list of links will b displayed? Once he clicks on oneo f the links, he will navogate out of the page n dey cant see the table of links anymore?

Now I dunno if this is wat u tried to do, but lemme kno if im rong.

mzanimephp

Originally posted by rohithmr
Once he clicks on one of the links, he will navogate out of the page n dey cant see the table of links anymore?

Now I dunno if this is wat u tried to do, but lemme kno if im rong.

Heh, you are "rong". 🙂 I'm going to use a template (which is already inplace) so the navigational links on the left will be on all pages - but PHP will discover somehow via PHP_SELF that the user is on one of those particular pages and place a little image of a arrow before the link (page) that the user is currently on - understand?

I tried putting all of the links into an array, then using the while loop to make PHP echo out all of the rows, it does this part fine, but it doesn't seem to properly echo out the array values.

rohithmr

haha, Ok i get what you r saying. Modify ur code so that the loop will iterate thru each item in the 'nav' element of the navigation array and compare it wit the PHP_SELF. Like this:

<table width="180" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"> 
  <tr> 
    <td bgcolor="#00458A" height="18" colspan="2" class="whitenote">&nbsp;Topics:</td> 
  </tr> 
  <tr> 
    <td bgcolor="#E1F0FF" height="9" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #003366" colspan="2"> 
      Click on one of the topics below and explore.</td> 
  </tr> 
  <tr> 
    <td width="23" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" height="1" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #006699" nowrap>&nbsp;<img hspace="3" src="images/expand.gif" width="9" height="9" alt=""> 
    </td> 
    <td height="1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #006699"><b>Home</b></td> 
  </tr> 

<?php
 $navigation = array( 
   "nav"  => array('/av/index.php','/am/index.php','/asia/index.php','/experiments2.php','/shots/index.php','/sl/index.php'), 
   "link" => array('movies','music','j-pop','wallpapers','screenshots','ftp hosts'), 
); 
$c = 0;
foreach ($navigation['nav'] as $val) { 
    echo "<tr>\n";
	if ($val == $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']) {
        echo "<td width=\"23\" align=\"center\" valign=\"middle\" nowrap bgcolor=\"#ECF5FF\" class=\"bluebelow\"><img src=\"PATH/TO/ARROW/IMAGE\"</td>\n ";
    } else {
        echo "<td width=\"23\" align=\"center\" valign=\"middle\" nowrap bgcolor=\"#ECF5FF\" class=\"bluebelow\">&nbsp;</td>\n ";
}
	echo "<td width=\"100%\" nowrap bgcolor=\"#ECF5FF\" class=\"bluebelow\"><a href=\" " . $val . " \" class=\"leftnav\"> " . $navigation["link"][$c++] . " </a></td>\n 
  </tr>\n"; 
} 

?> 

  <tr> 
    <td width="23" height="2" align="center" valign="middle" nowrap bgcolor="#ECF5FF" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #006699">&nbsp; 
    </td> 
    <td height="2" bgcolor="#ECF5FF" style="border-bottom: 1 solid #006699">&nbsp; </td> 
  </tr> 
</table>

What you seem to misunderstand is that, the elements in the array wont automatically iterate. Meaning you have to have a foreach statement or counter to make the elements to go to the next one. After knowin this I wouldnt recommend creating the $navigation the way you did. The script i provided will work, but assumes that you have the same number of links as the text.

mzanimephp

Awesome!!! your amazing! 😃

http://www.mzanime.com/experiments2.php

The navigation is quite a lot bigger, but this will help me to make it dynamic so I won't need to insert a little arrow image on every single page, instead just use a include.

I knew I was close, but I didn't know what this foreach() function does, also the $val varialbe seems to have no visible value (register globals?) but I'm glad it works!

rohithmr

Im glad you got it working. And i suggest you look into the PHP manual how foreach works, then you will get what the function of $val is.

Basically each time the loop runs, $val ges assigined the next item in $navigations['nav']

And also Good Job on the site there. The content is well organized and the layout very is well designed.