Displaying a loop from variable

Khael

Hello all,

To begin with, I would like to say that I am working on a forum type project without any prior knowledge of PHP.

What I am trying to do is have a page set up as a table. In the cells of that table I have php variables ($topMenu, $sideMenu, and $pageContent). These variables need to change depending on what is clicked.
(I have variables for buttons, and variables for other tables, etc. to be displayed upon clicking the buttons)

So right now a user can log in (at which point what I want the user to see is the latest 2 messages posted in the $pageContent variable). The problem is, the way the forum displays things right now, which is by looping through the database content and extracting the data incrementally. SO, in order to view the posts I would need to echo from inside the loop, however I don't want it to display the posts then, I want them listed in the $pageContent variable. Problem is, the only way I could think of putting the entire loop into a variable (i.e. $messages) would be by converting the entire loop into a string. However, when I do so, the php code does not work as I'd like...it simply remains hidden inside the source code of the page...whereas I'd like it to function.

Here is my loop code...

for($i=0; $i < $messageNum; $i++){
$message_id=mysql_result($messageResult,$i,"message_id");
$message_title=mysql_result($messageResult,$i,"message_title");
$message_time=mysql_result($messageResult,$i,"message_time");
$message_date=mysql_result($messageResult,$i,"message_date");
$message_content=mysql_result($messageResult,$i,"message_content");

//Button to enable comments.
$enable_comments="
<form name=\"showComments\" method=\"post\">
<input type=\"Hidden\" name=\"enableComments\">
<input type=\"Hidden\" name=\"comment_origin\" value=\"$message_title\"> 
<input type=\"submit\" value=\"Show Comments\"></form>";

//Button to disable comments.
$disable_comments="
<form name=\"hideComments\" method=\"post\">
<input type=\"Hidden\" name=\"disableComments\">
<input type=\"Hidden\" name=\"comment_origin\" value=\"$message_title\"> 
<input type=\"submit\" value=\"Hide Comments\"></form>";

//If the user clicks on "show comments"
if (isset($_POST['enableComments'])) {
//the button changes to "hide comments"
$commentButton = $disable_comments;
//and if the user clicks on "hide comments"
} elseif (isset($_POST['disableComments'])) {
//change the button to "show comments"
$commentButton = $enable_comments;
//otherwise show "show comments" by default.
} else {
$commentButton = $enable_comments;
}

$messageTable="
<center>
<table bgcolor=\"CCCCCC\" width=\"548\" height=\"240\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\">
	<tr>
	  <td class=\"title\" height=\"30\">$message_title</td>
	  <td class=\"time\" height=\"30\">$message_time</td>
	  <td class=\"date\" height=\"30\">$message_date</td>  

	</tr>
	<tr>	 
	  <td colspan=\"3\" class=\"content\" background=\"images/centre.png\" height=\"140\">$message_content</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td width=\"20%\" height=\"28\">
				<form action=\"messageEdit\" method=\"post\">
				<input type=\"Hidden\" name=\"edit_message\" value=\"$message_id\">
				<input type=\"button\" value=\"Edit\">
				</form></td>
	  <td width=\"20%\" height=\"28\">
				<form action=\"messageDelete.php\" method=\"post\">
				<input type=\"Hidden\" name=\"del_message\" value=\"$message_id\"> 
				<input type=\"button\" value=\"Delete\">
				</form></td>
	  <td width=\"20%\" height=\"28\">$commentButton</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td colspan=\"3\">$commentTables</td>
	</tr>
</table>
</center>
<br><br>";

echo $messageTable;

}

basically, I'd like to store that entire loop into a variable called $messages, and then make $pageContent in another file equal to $messages in order to display the posts.

If anyone could please help me out, that would be great. :bemused:

Thanks in advance,
-Khael

Khael

bump

See http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?t=10220471

Khael

I believe there must be some way of using an array to get this working. Perhaps if it were possible to store data from the loop directly into an array rather than echoing it.

The problem is, I have no idea how I would go about doing so, since I have not used arrays extensively.

I'm going to play around with arrays again and post what I've come up with here, though I have been trying this for a while.

Help would be appreciated :queasy:

-Khael

leatherback

If I underastand you correctly, you need:
$message_content=mysql_result($messageResult,$i,"message_content");

which is now already retrieved in a loop..?

To echo all at once?

Then:


for($i=0; $i < $messageNum; $i++){  // I am not used to this way of retrieving, cannot check it

$message_content.=mysql_result($messageResult,$i,"message_content"); // note the period before the =

// more code here
} // en of for loop

echo $message_content;

Khael

Well, the message_content is just part of what I need echoed (I need the title, author, date, and time as well), but for the sake of simplicity, yes.

However, that would only display the content once, whereas what I'm trying to do is make it echo as many times as there are filled-in message fields in my database.

So if I have 10 messages in my database, I'd like them all to be echoed. The problem is, I would have to echo inside the loop for it to go through all the messages.

However, because of your help, I read about .= and used it in another spot instead of where you showed me in order to get it to work 😃

Thanks so much 🙂

here's the way my final code works:

for($i=0; $i < $messageNum; $i++){  // this makes it go through the database to check for all the messages

$message_content=mysql_result($messageResult,$i,"message_content");  // no period here, but later instead

// code code code
} // end of for loop 

$messages.=$message_content;  // this is where I put the period, that way once the loop goes to the next increment of $messageNum, it can update $messages with the new $message_content from the database

Again, thanks, problem solved 🙂

-Khael