Once you have a Mysql database setup with a table and some data in that table you are ready to display the data through PHP. This is very easy to do not only efficiently but also with a clean design in mind.
So let’s say this is your MySQL table:
Categories
Id, Title, Description, Timestamp
Once you have a Mysql database setup with a table and some data in that table you are ready to display the data through PHP. This is very easy to do not only efficiently but also with a clean design in mind.
Here is a basic Mysql command to grab all the data in our table “categories”:
[codesyntax lang=”php”]
<?php
$query = “SELECT * FROM categories ORDER BY id DESC”;
$sql = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
$count = mysql_num_rows($sql);
?>
[/codesyntax]
This will grab all the data out of the table “categories” in descending order by the ID. Now let’s say we want to display this in a table with headers and organization. Here is an easy example of how to do this:
[codesyntax lang=”php”]
<?php
if($count > 0){
// rows were returned by the query
// set up the table opener and headers
echo ‘<table width=”100%” align=”center” border=”0″ cellpadding=”2″ cellspacing=”0″ class=”data_table”>’;
echo ‘<tr>’;
// headers
echo ‘<th align=”left”>Title</th>’;
echo ‘<th align=”left”>Description</th>’;
echo ‘<th align=”left”>Posted Date</th>’;
echo ‘</tr>’;
for($i=0;$i<=$count;$i++){
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)){
// go through all the returned rows and print the fields
echo ‘<tr>’;
if($i%2==0){
// apply row styles
echo ‘<td align=”left” class=”td_alt2″>’.$row[‘title’].'</td>’;
echo ‘<td align=”left” class=”td_alt2″>’.substr($row[‘description’],0,200).”;
// shorten to 200 characters
if(strlen($row[‘description’]) > 200){
echo ‘…’;
}
echo ‘</td>’;
echo ‘<td align=”left” class=”td_alt2″>’.date(“m/d/Y”,$row[‘timestamp’]).'</td>’;
} else {
echo ‘<td align=”left” class=”td_alt1″>’.$row[‘title’].'</td>’;
echo ‘<td align=”left” class=”td_alt1″>’.substr($row[‘description’],0,200).”;
// shorten to 200 characters
if(strlen($row[‘description’]) > 200){
echo ‘…’;
}
echo ‘</td>’;
echo ‘<td align=”left” class=”td_alt1″>’.date(“m/d/Y”,$row[‘timestamp’]).'</td>’;
}
echo ‘</tr>’;
}
}
echo ‘</table>’;
} else {
echo ‘No entries found, please try again.’;
}
?>[/codesyntax]
This will output something like so:
| Title | Description | Posted Date |
|---|---|---|
| Data 1 Title | Data 1 Description | Data 1 Date |
| Data 2 Title | Data 2 Description | Data 2 Date |
| Data 3 Title | Data 3 Description | Data 3 Date |
| Data 4 Title | Data 4 Description | Data 4 Date |
| Data 5 Title | Data 5 Description | Data 5 Date |