For While Loops

SxChoc

Hiya folks, I am a complete novice in PHP (well programming languages in general). I downloaded a custom written PHP page which pulls data from an XML feed and displays the results on screen.

A chunk of this code is as follows

while (list ($key, $val) = each ($smon['DETAILS'])){
?>
<td width="100" height="19" Align="left" valign="bottom" bgcolor="#000000">
<?PHP
print "$val \n";
?>
</td>
</tr>
<?php
}

So I'm taking the results from the XML feed and displaying them in a stardard HTML table. What I'd like to be able to able to do is this, one of the $key values is the word 'map' and when this value is found I'd like to load the corresponding $val into a variable that I can use later in the page. And secondly I may need to loop through the routine again but when I've tried repeating the code further down the routine, nothing happens. It's almost as if doing the loop once has set the loop at the end (I'm not explaining this very well) so further loops have no effect. In ASP I'd use something like Myrs.Movefirst to set the recordset back to the beginning.

Like I said I am a total novice in this and to honest I don't understand most of the code above.

Any help would be great.

Thanks in advance

Installer

if ($key == 'map') {
    $var_for_later = $val;
}

reset()

SxChoc

Thank you for your time.

So the Reset function will return the loop back to the beginning?

Installer

Yes, it will, and it also returns the first element (according to the manual, anyway).

Edit: That is, of course, if you use it inside the while loop; if used after the loop it will make sure the next one starts at element 0.

SxChoc

I know I'm asking a lot, but that doesn't seem to work (the reset part), no errors are generated but nothing else happens either. I tried to read up on the function but to be honest I don't understand the language well enough to stand much of a chance.

Any light you could shed would be grand

Installer

Here's how you would use it (for the purpose you described in your first post, if I read it right):

while (list($key, $val) = each($smon['DETAILS'])) {
    if ($key == 'map') { 
        $var_for_later = $val; 
    }
    // Your code here
}

reset($smon['DETAILS']);
// Now the next loop will start at the top again

while (list($key, $val) = each($smon['DETAILS'])) {
    // Your code here
}

laserlight

Actually, in this case it might be better to use a foreach loop, and so avoid having to reset the internal array pointer.

foreach ($smon['DETAILS'] as $key => $val) {
	if ($key == 'map') {
		$var_for_later = $val;
	}
	// Your code here
}
foreach ($smon['DETAILS'] as $key => $val) {
	// Your code here
}

SxChoc

You're a legend, that works a treat.

Thanks again for your time.

Take care

Installer

You're right, again, of course, l.l., and, believe it or not I was coming to that. And it's good you were able to solve his problem. Since SxChoc is a newbie posting in a newbie forum, I thought maybe learning how to do what he was trying to do wouldn't be a bad thing.