absolute beginner, baffled by output.

slackerboy

i'm attempting to follow an excersize in a book.
The goal is to use php to output a multiplication table.
i have made a few rudamentary scripts so far which all work.
but this one is making no sense to me.

this is my script:

<?php
$start = 1;
$end = 12;
?>
<html>
<head>
	<title>multiplication</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>a multiplication table</h2>
<table border="1">
<?php 
print ("<tr>");
print ("<th> </th>");
for ($y = $start, $y <= $end, $y++)
	print ("<th>$y</th>");
print ("</tr>");
for ($y = $start, $y<= $end, $y++)
	{
	print ("<tr><th>$y</th>");
	for ($x = $start, $x <= $end, $x++)
		{
		$result = $y * $x;
		print ("<td>$result</td>");
		}
	print ("</tr>");	
	}
?>
</table>
</body>
</html>

how ever,
I end up with a blank page in the browser and the source looks like this:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"></HEAD>
<BODY></BODY></HTML>

any idea where its getting that info from?

LordShryku

You should be using colons instead of commas in your loops...

for ($y = $start; $y <= $end; $y++)

for ($x = $start; $x <= $end; $x++)

slackerboy

ah, i see,
so if you screw up your syntax like that
you get nothing for output?

LordShryku

Depends on how error_reporting is setup in the php.ini

If error_reporting is turned off in the ini file, you could try putting error_reporting(E_ALL) at the top of your script to out errors for that script.

slackerboy

ok, now i have my php.ini file located in my c:/windows directory.
Is this correct?
if so i do have my error_reporting set to E_ALL
but i did notice that display_errors is set to off.
i'm guessing that's the problem?

LordShryku

You have it in the right place(otherwise PHP wouldn't work, and you'd be in the install forums :p)

And you are correct. Having display_errors set to On enables the errors to be sent to the browser.

slackerboy

ah yes, that helps so much
i've never been so glad to see an error message 😃

slackerboy

thanks so much for your help.
i've added this site to my favorites,
and i'm sure i'll be returning many times
with more questions.