How to call pagination php script from html page

[binzy]

Hello,

I know there are many threads related to pagination (splitting mysql data into multiple pages) and I have gone through most of them. But my query is a bit different. I am new to coding and am bit stuck with a simple issue, I think. Hoping to get help here.

I have created a pagination.php file (taking help from the internet) which gives the intended results in the browser when I click on the url - http://myhost/pagination.php (example url). The php script is usual I think for pagination, using $_GET['page'].

But I am not sure how to integrate this code into my website. I currently have a static products.html page (and few other static pages created using kompozer).
I wish to now call the pagination.php on the products page and display products from my mysql db page by page. How do I do that?
How do I give value to the 'page' parameter in this case?

Would like to know the best way to do this. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

[sneakyimp]

It would be helpful to see a sample of the output given by you pagination.php script.

I understand that you have created an HTML page and would like to use the information returned by your script in that HTML page. There are a couple of ways:
1) Instead of directing users to somepage.html, direct them to pagination.php and alter pagination.php to generate the HTML using the data it has found. You can do this either by directly coding HTML in your print or echo statements, or you can use some kind of templating approach which fetches the data, then reads in the HTML you've created and merges the two together.
2) Use Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX) in your HTML page to query your pagination.php page. You may need to alter pagination.php to output JSON format or XML format of your data.

In either situation, you will need to make changes to both your PHP and your HTML.

[binzy]

Thanks for the reply.
Please see the results page from my pagination script bwlow. The data is in raw format, I intend to do the formatting later.

Since I dont know AJAX at all, the second option will not be possible for me. I'll try the first, but just to confirm; What you are saying is : When a user clicks on Products button on the home page, the link will be for http://myhost../pagination.php, and the script itself shall contain the HTML formatting (header, footer, content etc) that I originally had for my Products.html page? Is that correct?

Results for http://myhost../pagination.php?page=1
($page=1):

Showing results for page 1

Name Price

Personalised Pair of Crystal Red Wine Glasses 41.95
Personalised Cut Crystal Decanter 58.95
Personalised Crystal Wine Bottle Coaster 45.00
Personalised Pair of Crystal Cut Whisky Tumblers 41.95
Personalised Crystal Champagne Flute 14.95
Personalised Pair of Crystal Brandy Glasses 41.95
Personalised Oval Crystal Vase 48.95
Personalised Crystal Pint Tankard 33.95
Personalised Pair of Crystal Champagne Flutes 41.95
Personalised Pewter Hip Flask 28.95
Pink Personalised Message Bunny 14.95
Blue Personalised Rabbit Teddy Bear 14.95
Tatty Teddy Personalised Message Bear Blue 14.95
Tatty Teddy Personalised Message Bear Pink 14.95
Personalised Childs Expanding Identity Bracelet 16.99
Personalised Picture - Sandcastle 4.84
Blue Stork Personalised 8inch Plate 14.99
Personalised Pink Stork Money Box 14.99
Personalised Blue Stork Money Box 14.99
Blue Footprint Personalised Square Message Plate 24.99

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[sneakyimp]

I think you understand me correctly. When you write a PHP script and put it on your web server, a properly configured web server knows that it should feed the contents of your file to the PHP engine. Outputting HTML from a PHP script is by far the most common usage of PHP. It is natural. You can do it and feel good about it.

So if you go into your script and look at it, you will probably have some loops and some [man]echo[/man] or [man]print[/man] statements. You'll need to alter them so that HTML comes out with them. It's kind of a pain in the ass but people do it all the time.

Another approach is to get some kind of template engine but I'm thinking this might be more complicated for you.

[binzy]

Thanks a lot for your help. I'll try this out. Hopefully will be able to do it.

[sneakyimp]

I almost forgot...you can jump in and out of php like so

<?php
// my big fat php script

// do queries, pagination, gather up the data here

?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Here is my fancy page</title>
</head>
<body>
  <table>
<?
foreach($data as $d) {
?>
    <tr><td><? echo $d ?></td></tr>
<?
} // end of the for loop
?>
  </table>
</body>
</html>

That my make your job a little easier.

[binzy]

Oh thanks!
I was just about to be buried under the code..
Just a quick question (at the risk of sounding silly!)
The $data here is an array of the product variables that I want to display, i.e. $name, $price, etc..?

[binzy]

Hello again,
A little bit of a problem.
I have done what you told me to, and it works to some extent, i mean the data is displayed correctly and the navigation links work, but the formatting works only for the first page. The rest of the pages are displayed simply. What I did is created a products.php page, included the paging logic alongwith the html formatting (header, footer etc) of my previous products.html page, and displayed the data in a table. Now everything is fine for page 1, but rest of the page links open a simple page without any of the header, footer, etc. I dont know how to resolve this. Could you please guide me? Thanks!

[sneakyimp]

You need to change your code so that products.php links to itself rather than pagination.php.

[binzy]

Thanks a lot. It works now.