Using a three column layout for table results

[maddie2120]

Hi everyone, I'm having real problems trying to retrieve database records in a 3 column layout, I got there eventually with a huge amount of help.

 

Unfortunately the code will only display records that are divisable by by three; for example for a database table that has 45 records there is no problem, as all records can be displayed in a 3 column layout. However if the table contains 47 records it won't display the 2 odd records.  My php skills are limited so I need all the help I can get.

 

I'm a bit desperate to sort this out for a project I'm doing, any help would be greatly appreciated - here is the php code:

 

$total = count($records);
  $nocol = 3;
  $norows = $total / $nocol;

for ($i=1; $i <= $norows; $i++) {
    $cell = 0;
    echo "<tr>";
    for($col=1; $col <= $nocol; $col++) {
       echo "<td>";
       if
       ($col == 1) {
       $cell += $i;
       echo '<strong class="navtext">'.$records[$cell - 1]['ret_name'].'</strong><br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_add1'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_add2'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_town'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_county'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_pcode'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_phone'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_email'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_web'].'<br />';
       } else {
        $cell += $norows;
       echo '<strong class="navtext">'.$records[$cell - 1]['ret_name'].'</strong><br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_add1'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_add2'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_town'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_county'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_pcode'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_phone'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_email'].'<br />';
       echo $records[$cell - 1]['ret_web'].'<br />';
       
       }
       echo"</td>";
    }
      echo"</tr>";
} 

 

I'm also trying to paginate the results, is this actually possible when using a three column layout?  I look forward to any suggestions.

[litebearer]

Perhaps this PHPFreaks snippet will help...

http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/faqcode-snippet-repository/multi-column-results/

[maddie2120]

Thank you for the link, the code looks really good unfortunately I need to use it in an array as in my original code, the code mentioned only has one column so I would need to create an array and I don't think I have the skills to do it.

 

I also didn't understand how the '$product' variable would work as it didn't seem to be assigned anything - is that correct or is this just my lack of understanding, I have copied the code below from that forum thread written by:

 

Ober

Dated June 09 2006

 

(hope that's okay)

 

<table cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3">
<?php
$query = "SELECT product FROM selling_items ORDER BY prod_id";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die("There was a problem with the SQL query: " . mysql_error()); 
if($result && mysql_num_rows($result) > 0)
{
    $i = 0;
    $max_columns = 3;
    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))        
   {
       // make the variables easy to deal with
       extract($row);

       // open row if counter is zero
       if($i == 0)
          echo "<tr>";

       // make sure we have a valid product
       if($product != "" && $product != null)
          echo "<td>$product</td>";
    
       // increment counter - if counter = max columns, reset counter and close row
       if(++$i == $max_columns) 
       {
           echo "</tr>";
           $i=0;
       }  // end if 
   } // end while
} // end if results

// clean up table - makes your code valid!
if($i < $max_columns)
{
    for($j=$i; $j<$max_columns;$j++)
        echo "<td> </td>";
}
?>
</tr>
</table>

 

Any ideas as to how I could combine the two or if anyone could point me in the right direction I would be most grateful - many thanks