Re: problem formatting output

> > It looks as though your address starts on a new line, so that your number > of orders is doubled, and every second order is actually the address for > the order on the preceding line. Are you assuming that all of the data for > each order, including the address, is on the same line? Bingo!!! That was the issue. In my processorder.php script (the action that the html form points to) I have the following string that I construct to write to the file: $outputstring = $date."\t".$tireqty." tires \t".$oilqty." oil\t" .$sparkqty." spark plugs\t\$".$totalamount."\t*\n*". $street."\t". $town."\t". $zip."\t". $state."\t\n"; For some reason, I let a newline sneak into the output string. It was probably a mistake while I was editing it. Correcting the string like this solves the issue. $outputstring = $date."\t".$tireqty." tires \t".$oilqty." oil\t" .$sparkqty." spark plugs\t\$".$totalamount."\t". $street."\t". $town."\t". $zip."\t". $state."\t\n"; Now the output is all on one line. There was an issue with a <tr> tag that wasn't closed. Thanks also for catching that. But the newline was the main problem I was having because it was breaking up the output into two lines. And the script I was using to view the orders was not expecting that. A text file to hold the orders of a fictional online store? That's not the > way I would do it. > My advice, take everything to a MySQL database. Place your Product, > Customers, and Sales in different tables. That way it will become a simple > matter to keep track of everything. Yep!!! Most definitely, Tedd. I'm getting there. This was only to fulfill the requirements of the lesson I was doing in the book. The next chapter has you doing the same thing but with a MySQL database. Thanks all!! Tim On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 11:56 AM, Tedd Sperling <tedd@sperling.com> wrote: > Tim: > > > On Jan 3, 2015, at 10:31 PM, Tim Dunphy <bluethundr@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Hey all, > > > > Followign along in php & mysql web development by Luke Welling and Laura > > Thompson I came along an example to format the output text file. The file > > was meant to hold the orders of a fctional online store. > > A text file to hold the orders of a fictional online store? That's not the > way I would do it. > > My advice, take everything to a MySQL database. Place your Product, > Customers, and Sales in different tables. That way it will become a simple > matter to keep track of everything. > > > > Here's the output of the code: > > > > Bob’s Auto PartsCustomer OrdersOrder DateTiresOilSpark > PlugsTotalAddress9:49pm > > EST Saturday, 01/03/2015125$140.00960 Fairview Dr08753010:05pm EST > > Saturday, 01/03/2015125$140.00904 Sylvan Ave07632010:06pm EST Saturday, > > 01/03/2015334$346.00900 Sylvan Ave07632010:07pm EST Saturday, > 01/03/2015125 > > $140.00960 Fairview Dr087530 > > > > As you can see, at the first line the address entry doesn't line up and > > then throws the rest of the form out of whack. > > -snip- > > Try using CSS in your forms and thus take the styling out of them. > Remember to separate content from presentation -- it will make your code > much easier to debug. > > Cheers, > > tedd > > _______________ > tedd sperling > tedd@sperling.com > > > > > > -- GPG me!! gpg --keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys F186197B