[Resolved] Help with making date headers in news script

[Shinmeiryu]

I'm trying to have my news display like this.

Monday, December 8th, 2002
Subject (12:00:00 PM)
News Text, blah, blah, blah

Subject (10:30:00 AM)
News text, blah blah blah

Subject (07:30:00 AM)
blah blah blah

Sunday, December 6th, 2002
Subject (9:14:00 PM)
blah blah blah

Subject (7:00:00 PM)
blah blah blah

and so on....

The problem with my current code is it only displays the most recent news post's date and will display all the news content from past dates, but not the dates associated to it. Is there a way to fix this, or are there any alternatives that might be easier to produce what I'm looking for?

$query = "SELECT DISTINCT DATE_FORMAT(newsdate,'%W, %M %D, %Y') as 'displaydate' FROM news WHERE activate='1' ORDER BY displaydate DESC";
		$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error()); 
		while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
			$displaydate = $row['displaydate'];
			echo '<strong>'.$displaydate.'</strong><br><hr>';

		$query = "SELECT *, DATE_FORMAT(newsdate,'%r') as 'displaytime' FROM news WHERE activate='1' ORDER BY displaytime DESC";
		$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error()); 
		while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
			$newsID = $row['ID'];
			$subject = $row['subject'];
			$newsbody = $row['newsbody'];
			$pressrelease = $row['pressrelease'];
			$source = $row['source'];
			$sourcelink = $row['sourcelink'];	
			$displaytime = $row['displaytime'];
			echo '<strong>'.$subject.' ('.$displaytime.')</strong><br>';
			echo (nl2br($newsbody));
			echo '<br><br>';
		} 
	}

[barand]

Try this way with a single query and output date only on change

$query = "SELECT *, DATE_FORMAT(newsdate,'%r') as displaytime,
                      DATE_FORMAT(newsdate,'%W, %M %D, %Y') as displaydate
                      FROM news WHERE activate='1' ORDER BY displaydate,displaytime DESC";
            $result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());

        $lastDate = '';   // add this

        while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
            $newsID = $row['ID'];
            $subject = $row['subject'];
            $newsbody = $row['newsbody'];
            $pressrelease = $row['pressrelease'];
            $source = $row['source'];
            $sourcelink = $row['sourcelink'];
            $displaydate = $row['displaydate'];
            $displaytime = $row['displaytime'];

            if ($displaydate != $lastDate) echo '<strong>'.$displaydate.'</strong><br><hr>';   // add this
            $lastDate = $displaydate;   // add this

            echo '<strong>'.$subject.' ('.$displaytime.')</strong><br>';
            echo (nl2br($newsbody));
            echo '<br><br>';
        }

hth

[Shinmeiryu]

That works. 🙂

I'm still sort of confused as to how this, $lastDate = ''; // add this, operates. From reading it I see it as if displaydate is not blank then show it, then the blank spot takes over for the displaydate. I'm figuring that is where it knows to not show the dates for the news posts all under that date?

Thank you for the help.

[barand]

The important lines are

if ($displaydate != $lastDate) echo '<strong>'.$displaydate.'</strong><br><hr>';   // add this 
                $lastDate = $displaydate;   // add this 

where it checks for a change of date.

That first added line ensures we don't start off with lastdate equal to the first date retrieved.

hth