Help! pulling my hair out ...

[Sean S]

Today I found out that I'm still a noob when it comes down to php :ermm: and would like to ask for help here once again, and I hope someone will be able to do so.

Goal:
what I'm trying to do is to display some data from mysql in a php page in a table containing 3 columns.

Problem:
I can't get the code to work and display the data in columns. I already know how to display the data in rows using the loop, but what I don't know is how I would go ahead and display the data in columns.

So instead of having something like this,

data 1
data 2
data 3

I want to have something like this

data 1 data 2 data 3

The code that I'm working with is the following, and it just doesn't work for me,

PHP Code:

<?php
$username="xxxxx";
$password="xxxxx";
$database="xxxxx";
$table="testing";
$number="20"; 

//number of columns of the table generated
$column = "3";

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database"); 

$i = 1;
$e = 2; 
$col_value = $column;

$getbikes = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT $number "); //Retrieves all of the Data from table
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getbikes))
{
echo "<table><tr>";

echo "<td><a href='http://baldjf.com' class=''>$row[bikename]</a>";

echo "<a href='http://www.static-design.com'>";

echo "<img border='0' height='65'width='75' src='$filepath'>";
        
echo "<span>";
       
echo "<br>something here<br>";

echo "</a><br></font><br>";
   
echo "</span>"; 
   
if ($i == '$pp_column') { 

        echo "</td></tr><tr>";
        
$column = $col_value*$e;
$e++;
} 

else     {
    echo "</td>";
    }
    
$i++;
}

echo "</tr></table>";       
?>

thanks in advance :nervous: ,
Sean

[SuperFly]

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getbikes))
{
echo "<table><tr>";

Every time the loop runs, a new table and a new row are created. Try changing this:

$getbikes = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT $number "); //Retrieves all of the Data from table
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getbikes))
{
echo "<table><tr>";

echo "<td><a href='http://baldjf.com' class=''>$row[bikename]</a>";

echo "<a href='http://www.static-design.com'>";

echo "<img border='0' height='65'width='75' src='$filepath'>";
        
echo "<span>";
       
echo "<br>something here<br>";

echo "</a><br></font><br>";
   
echo "</span>"; 
   
if ($i == '$pp_column') { 

        echo "</td></tr><tr>";
        
$column = $col_value*$e;
$e++;
} 

else     {
    echo "</td>";
    }
    
$i++;
}

to this:

$getbikes = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT $number "); //Retrieves all of the Data from table
echo "<table><tr>";
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getbikes))
{
echo "<td><a href='http://baldjf.com' class=''>$row[bikename]</a>";

echo "<a href='http://www.static-design.com'>";

echo "<img border='0' height='65'width='75' src='$filepath'>";
        
echo "<span>";
       
echo "<br>something here<br>";

echo "</a><br></font><br>";
   
echo "</span>"; 

echo "</td>";
    
$i++;
}

I removed the $i == '$pp_column' conditional, cause I don't know what you want to do with it, or what $pp_column is.
Also, some HTML, you close a font tag, but you don't open it, and your <span> and <a> tags go like this: <a><span></a></span> (a.k.a., they aren't nested properly), which may screw them up. You might want to fix these.
I hope Brandon doesn't mind me posting from his account -___-

[Princeton]

if all you want is a 3 column (will never change)

echo <table>
while (loop)
{
echo <tr><td>col 1</td><td>col 2</td><td>col 3</td></tr>
}
echo </table>

[Sean S]

Originally Posted by princeton

if all you want is a 3 column (will never change)

echo <table>
while (loop)
{
echo <tr><td>col 1</td><td>col 2</td><td>col 3</td></tr>
}
echo </table>

wow thanks, those help me get a bit closer . Princeton the problem is that I might change the value sometimes, and I want to control the amount of columns by just changing a value of a variable, in this case the $column.

Using your code superfly also did help, I changed it around a bit and got this. However the problem with this one is that the number of columns only applies to the first row,

so I end up having data like this,

data 1 data 2 data 3
data 4 data 5 data 6 dtat 7 data 8 ....

I just can't understand why the value 3 for columns only applies to the first row now , you guys know why this happens? this is the final code that I have,

PHP Code:

<?php
$username="xxxxx";
$password="xxxxx";
$database="xxxxx";
$table="testing";
$number="8"; 

$i = "1";
$e = "2"; 
$col_value = "$column";

//number of columns of the table generated
$column = 3;

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database"); 

$getbikes = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT $number"); //Retrieves all of the Data from table
echo "<table><tr>";
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getbikes))
{
echo "<td><a href='http://baldjf.com' class=''>$row[bikename]</a>";

echo "<a href='http://www.static-design.com'>";

echo "<img border='0' height='65'width='75' src='$filepath'>";
        
echo "<span>";
       
echo "<br>something here<br>";

echo "</a><br></font><br>";
   
echo "</span>"; 

if ($i == "$column") {

        echo "</td></tr><tr>"; 

$column = $col_value*$e;

$e++;
  
}  

else     { 

echo "</td>";

}
    
$i++;

}

echo "</table>";    

?>

[Aesma Deva]

I'm the same guy who posted as Superfly before. Anyway...

$col_value = "$column";

//number of columns of the table generated
$column = 3;

The first line assigns the value "$column" to $col_value, not what's inside of $column. Also, you don't need a $col_value variable, since it's value doesn't change from 3, unless if you plan changing it later. Soooo, this should work as you want it:

<?php
$username="xxxxx";
$password="xxxxx";
$database="xxxxx";
$table="testing";
$number="8"; 

$i = 1;
$e = 2;

//number of columns of the table generated
$column = 3;

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database"); 

$getbikes = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT $number"); //Retrieves all of the Data from table
echo "<table><tr>";
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getbikes))
{
echo "<td><a href='http://baldjf.com' class=''>$row[bikename]</a>";

echo "<a href='http://www.static-design.com'>";

echo "<img border='0' height='65'width='75' src='$filepath'>";
        
echo "<span>";
       
echo "<br>something here<br>";

echo "</a><br></font><br>";
   
echo "</span>"; 
echo "</td>";

if ($i == $column) {

echo "</tr><tr>"; 

$column = 3*$e;

$e++;

}  
    
$i++;

}

echo "</table>";    

?>

I also removed some more stuff that I don't think you'll need.

[Sean S]

wow thank you so much Aesma, it worked great!