Re: how to create html tables in php

Hi Sander, > I made a database with bookmarks, these bookmarks are catogarized by > type. > Now I want to display those bookmarks in tables by category. This works > already fine. > The only problem I have is that the tables are very difficult to handle. > > I want to make 4 tables in a row (so that will be 4 dif categories with > bookmarks) and after that, the next table should start under the first > one. > Like this > > category category category category > xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx > xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx > xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx > > category category category category > xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx > xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx > xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx > > > (xxxxx = a weblink ;-) > > The (dutch) website where you can find a full example for what I mean: > http://www.startpagina.nl/ The description (above) shows category-columns of a regular/uniform length/height, so that the second set of four category headings all appear on the same line. The web page example does not look like this, but the next category starts immediately under the last entry of its columnar predecessor... How are you retrieving the bookmarks from the database - all in one query, or a series of queries to retrieve a category at a time? (I'll assume the former) Here are two ways to implement in PHP (depending upon how you want to 'visualise' the data): 1 table - see the data as four columns Set up a two-dimensional array in RAM, and by working through the db-resultset a row at a time populate the table with column-row data by working down each column until the category changes and then shifting over one column, etc, then print the table with two (nested) loops to output one row at a time across the columns until all of the table data has been dealt with. (You could view the resultset as a 'buffer' and really get complicated to 'save' RAM, but my advice would be to get the above working first, and then try any optimisation ideas) 2 resultset View the resultset as a single column of bookmarks (or read it into a single one-dimensional array), depending upon your chosen db and PHP's retrieval mechanism you could set up four 'pointers' into the resultset - one for each column, then read one result-row from each of the four pointers (incrementing as you go) to immediately output within each of the four output columns. Programmatically, it would be a lot easier to implement the flow the categories horizontally, eg category xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx category xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx category xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx Enough to get you going? Regards, =dn