[Resolved] Problems displaying html above php

[wayoutpost]

Hello all. I'm creating a site that displays a table of information from a mysql database on a php page inside an iframe. This works great: http://www.wayoutpost.com/features.shtml

Now, I'm trying to put a menu of letters that link to anchors inside the iframe (using php). I've been successful creating the menu of letters: http://www.wayoutpost.com/features.php. But, I can't seem to get the top of my page to show up (note that it has <!--includes--!> with it).

I've looked thru the html to the point of nausea <and I'm going to be really embarassed if it's because of the html>.

Here's my code:

<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="780" height="100%" align="center">
<tr>	
    <td colspan="3"><!--#include file="header.html"--></td>
</tr>
<tr>
		<td bgcolor="#333366"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1"></td>
    	<td align="center" valign="top"> 
					<table align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tr>					<td align="center" bgcolor="#EEEEEE"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1"></td>

				  <td align="center" bgcolor="#333366" valign="middle"><span class="Head">wayout 
					featured items</span></td>
						<td align="center" bgcolor="#EEEEEE"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1"></td>
					</tr>				<tr> 
					  <td align="center" bgcolor="#333366" colspan="3">
									<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="left">
										<tr>
										<td><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="5"></td>
										<td>
											<?php $con=mysql_connect("localhost", "user", "pw")or die("Connect Error: ".mysql_error());
																		$db="dig513_features";
																		mysql_select_db($db, $con);
																		$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM music ORDER BY artist ASC");
																		$result=array(); 
																		$old_char = '#';
											?>
											<?php 
												while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))    
													{    
													$first_char =  strtoupper(substr($row['artist'],0,1));  
													if ($first_char != $old_char)   
													//checking if letter exists
													  {  
														$old_char = $first_char;

														//putting td for each letter
														echo '<td align="left"><span class="featuretext">';  

														echo '<a href="music3.php#';  echo "{$first_char}"; echo 'target="features">'; echo "{$first_char}"; echo '</a>';
														echo "</span></td>";  
														}
													}  
													?>
												<?php
													mysql_close($con);
												?>
											</td>
										</tr>
									</table>
					  </td>
					</tr>
					<tr> 
					  <td align="center" colspan="3"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="2" height="2"></td>
					</tr>
					<tr> 
						<td><img src="/images/spacer.gif" width="1"></td>
						<td bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="/images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="1"></td>
						<td bgcolor="#EEEEEE"><img src="/images/spacer.gif" width="1" bgcolor="#EEEEEE"></td>
					</tr>
					<tr> 
					  <td align="center"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1"></td>
					  <td align="center"><iframe src="music3.php" width="100%" height="525" name="features" align="center" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" bgcolor="#333366" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe></td>
					  <td align="center" bgcolor="#EEEEEE"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1"></td>
					</tr>				</table>
  		</td>
		<td bgcolor="#333366"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1"></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td colspan="3" align="center"><!--#include file="footer.html"--></td>
	</tr>
</table>

[Fuzzio]

I'm new to php and don't know if this is the problem, but try using PRINT<<<E to display your HTML instead of a series of echos.
Like this:

PRINT<<<E
<a href="blablabla">Hello world</a>
E;

(never forget the E; at the end.)

[scoppc]

I dunno whether <!-- #include file='' --> is valid for HTML, but to include a file using php, do the following:

<?php
      include("header.html");
?>

[sarahk]

I'm assuming fuzzio was referring to:

echo '<td align="left"><span class="featuretext">';   

                                                        echo '<a href="music3.php#';  echo "{$first_char}"; echo 'target="features">'; echo "{$first_char}"; echo '</a>'; 
                                                        echo "</span></td>";   

you could use heredoc but you could also

//note that I've changed around the order of the single
//and double quotes
echo "<td align='left'><span class='featuretext'>
<a href='music3.php#{$first_char} target='features'>{$first_char}</a></span></td>";   

and for the record

echo "{$first_char}";

is the same as

echo $first_char;

only in the first example we are asking PHP to do a bit more work.

[wayoutpost]

I got this all sorted now.

Thanks for the assistance, guys. I was unaware that php didn't accept html includes. I changed the includes and bing badda bing....it's all good. thanks again!