Member Avatar for lewashby

In an php/html document could I create a loop to create html table rows as long as there is a rows to be read from a MySQL database table?
I could then populate the html table with the data but I first need to know if I can make a loop that will only run as longs as there are
more database rows to be read. Thanks.

  • 3 Contributors
  • 5 Replies
  • 3K Views
  • 5 Hours Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by lewashby
Member Avatar for diafol

Yes - use concatenation. Example:

$output = "";
while($data = $stmt->fetch())
{
    $output .= "<tr><td>{$data['field1']}</td><td>{$data['otherfield']}</td></tr>";
}

Then:

<table>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Field 1 Heading</th>
            <th>OtherField Heading</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <?=$output?>
    </tbody>
</table>
Member Avatar for jkon

Diafol answer is (of course) accurate and enough. I hope he don't mind I wrote one more example using a very simple view component HTML generator class for tables.

<?php

$database = "test";
$username = "testuser";
$password = "testpassword";

$db = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=".$database , $username, $password);
$statement = $db->prepare("SELECT * FROM persons WHERE age > ?");
$statement->execute( array(18) );
$rows = $statement->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

$personsTable = "";
if(count($rows) > 0)
{
    $table = new View_Generator_Table( array("First Name","Last Name","Age") );
    foreach($rows as $row)
    {
        $table->addCell( $row["firstName"] );
        $table->addCell( $row["lastName"] );
        $table->addCell( $row["age"] );
    }
    $personsTable = $table->generate();
}

header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>An example with a table</title>
</head>
<body>
    HERE ARE PERSONS OLDER THAN 18
    <br />
    <?=$personsTable?>
</body>
</html>
<?php
    /**
     * A very simple view component generator for tables 
     */
    class View_Generator_Table
    {
        private $headers = array();
        private $cells = array();

        /**
         * Array of the table headers
         * @param array of strings $headers
         */
        public function __construct($headers)
        {
            $this->headers = $headers;
        }

        /**
         * Adds a cell to the table
         * @param string $cell
         */
        public function addCell($cell = "")
        {
            $this->cells[] = $cell;
        }

        /**
         * Generates and returns the table html in a  string
         * @return string
         */
        public function generate()
        {
            $re = "";
            $columns = count($this->headers);
            if($columns  > 0)
            {
                $re .= "<table><thead><tr>";
                // Adding the headers
                foreach($this->headers as $header)
                {
                    $re .= "<th>".$header."</th>";
                }
                $re .= "</thead></tr>";

                $totalCells = count($this->cells);
                if($totalCells > 0)
                {
                    // Adding the data cells 
                    $re .= "<tbody>";
                    for($i=0;  $i < $totalCells; $i++)
                    {
                        $currentColumn = $i % $columns;
                        if($currentColumn == 0)
                        {
                            $re .= "<tr>";
                        }
                        $re .= "<td>".$this->cells[$i]."</td>";
                        if($currentColumn == $columns - 1)
                        {
                            $re .= "</tr>";
                        }
                    }

                    // If there the number of the cells don't much the number of the 
                    // columns then we add some empty cells 
                    if($currentColumn !== $columns - 1)
                    {
                        for($i = $currentColumn ;  $i < $columns - 1; $i++)
                        {
                            $re .= "<td></td>";
                        }
                        $re .= "</tr>";
                    }

                    $re .= "</tbody>";
                }

                $re .= "</table>";
            }
            return $re;
        }
    }
?>
commented: Hey, I like it! :) +15
Member Avatar for diafol

Seeing as you're using a fetchAll() so the complete result is in array format, you could have a simple additional method for bare bones data (not requiring any special preparation):

echo $table->addTable($headerArray, $fieldNameArray, $data);
Member Avatar for jkon

Yes of course diafol , we could also have a View Util class for data tables e.g.

    <?php
    class View_Utils_Table
    {
        /**
         * Creates a new View_Generator_Table using the headers and add cells 
         * defined by the fields using data from rows 
         * @param array of strings $headers
         * @param array of strings $fields
         * @param array of strings $rows
         * @return string
         */
        public static function generateDataTable($headers,$fields,$rows)
        {
            $table = new View_Generator_Table( $headers);
            if(count($rows) > 0)
            {
                foreach($rows as $row)
                {
                    foreach($fields as $field)
                    {
                        $table->addCell( $row[$field] );
                    }
                }
            }
            return $table->generate();
        }
    }
    ?>

and then we would just have

    $personsTable = View_Utils_Table::generateDataTable(
array("First Name","Last Name","Age")
,array("firstName","lastName","age")
, $rows);

(indent here is not the best since I am used in 80 chars lines and this WYSIWYG has other opinions :) )

commented: Nice ;) +0
Member Avatar for lewashby

Thanks all.

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