paging results: limiting amount of pages printed

selesfan87

Hi all 🆒

I have a slight problem with the logic of a script.

I made the script below as an example of splitting results of a query onto various pages.

<?php

echo "<html><head><title>Paging Results</title></head><body bgcolor=#ffffff link=#8b6568 alink=#000000 vlink=#8b6568>";

 connect();
  if ((!isset($page) || ($page == 0))) { $page = 1; }

  $perpage = 25;
  $start = $perpage*$page;
  $limit = $start-$perpage;
  $from = $limit+1;
  $to = $limit+$perpage;

  $query = "SELECT * FROM post ORDER BY postid asc LIMIT $limit,$perpage";
   $result = mysql_query($query,$connection) or die(mysql_error());

// quick couner
$getno = "SELECT postid FROM post"; $counter = mysql_query($getno,$connection) or die(mysql_error());
$totalmembers = mysql_num_rows($counter);

  $pages = ceil($totalmembers/$perpage);

  $comingfrom = $from;
  $comingto = $comingfrom+($perpage-1);

  if ($page == $pages) { $comingto = $totalmembers; }

echo "<table width=500 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 align=center><tr><td bgcolor=#8b6568><table cellpadding=4 cellspacing=1 border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=#ede3e6><font face=verdana size=2><center>";

 echo "Showing posts <b>$comingfrom</b> to <b>$comingto</b> of <b>$totalmembers</b> posts. Records split over <b>$pages</b> page(s).</center>";

 echo "</td></tr></table></td></tr></table><br><br>";

 echo "<table width=500 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 align=center><tr><td bgcolor=#8b6568><table width=100% cellpadding=4 cellspacing=1 border=0><tr><td bgcolor=#8b6568 width=5%><font face=verdana size=1 color=#ffffff><b>UserID</b></td><td bgcolor=#8b6568><font face=verdana size=1 color=#ffffff><b>Post</b></td></tr>";

 while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
  {
   $userid = $row['userid'];
   $pagetext = stripslashes($row['pagetext']);
   echo "<tr><td bgcolor=#ede3e6><font face=verdana size=2><b><a href=http://www.otchat.com/nailsea/member.php?action=getinfo&userid=$userid>$userid</a></b></td><td bgcolor=#ffffff><font face=verdana size=2>$pagetext</td></tr>";
  }
 echo "</table></td></tr></table><br><br>";

echo "<table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 align=center><tr><td bgcolor=8b6568><table cellpadding=4 cellspacing=1 border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=#ede3e6><font face=verdana size=2><b>Pages(s): $pages</td>";


  $previous = $page-1;
  $next = $page+1;

  // limits
  $top = $pages-1;


  if (($page != 1) && ($page != 2)) { echo "<td bgcolor=efefef><font face=verdana size=2><a href=pages.php?page=1>...First</a> </td>"; }
  if ($page != 1) { echo "<td bgcolor=#efefef><font face=verdana size=2> <a href=pages.php?page=$previous>Previous</a> </td>"; }

  for ($i = 1; $i <= $pages; $i++)
   {
    if ($i == $page) { echo "<td bgcolor=#dfdfdf><font face=verdana size=2> <b>$page</b> </td>"; } else { echo "<td bgcolor=#ffffff><font face=verdana size=2> <a href=pages.php?page=$i>$i</a> </td>"; }
   }

  if ($page != $pages) { echo " <td bgcolor=#efefef><font face=verdana size=2> <a href=pages.php?page=$next>Next</a> </td>"; }
  if (($page != $pages) && ($page != $pages-1)) { echo "<td bgcolor=efefef><font face=verdana size=2> <a href=pages.php?page=$pages>Last...</a> </td>"; }

echo "</td></tr></table></td></tr></table>";



?>

That works fair enough, but it prints links to all the pages returned. For example if it returned 12 pages it would display:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Obviously with a large result, there would be a huge amount of pages.

What could I do to the script to only show x pages on a screen with the current page being the middle value for example with 9 results, on page 6 displaying
4 5 6 7 8?

Is there any way to achieve this?

Thanks in advance!

Weedpacket

Well, the line you'd want to change is of course the last for statement

for ($i = 1; $i <= $pages; $i++)

$page is the current page I see, and you want that one to be in the middle. Let's say for the sake of argument you want links to the three previous pages and the three following pages.

So the loop should run from $page-3 to $page+3 inclusive.

for ($i = $page-3; $i <= $page+3; $i++)

But if $page is only 2, then there is only one previous page. While if you're on the second-to-last page, there's only one more page following.

So the loop shouldn't start before 1 and should finish after $pages.

So it should start at the greater of 1 and $page-3, and finish at the lesser of $pages and $page+3. The maximum and minumum, in other words.

for ($i = max(1,$page-3); $i <= min($page+3,$pages); $i++)

The efficiency of that can be improved a bit.

$start_counting=max(1,$page-3);
$finish_counting=min($pages,$page+3);
for ($i = $start_counting; $i <= $finish_counting; $i++)

to save recalculating that minimum over and over again.

selesfan87

Thanks! That really helps!

Appreciated. thumps up