Convert TD columns into TR rows

Question

Hi,

Is there a quick way to translate (using CSS or Javascript) a tables TD into TR, currently I have:

A B C D
1 2 3 4

and I want to translate to:

A 1
B 2
C 3
D 4

??

Answer 1

You want to turn HTML arranged like this:

<tr><td>A</td><td>B</td><td>C</td><td>D</td></tr>
<tr><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td></tr>

Into this:

<tr><td>A</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>B</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>C</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>D</td><td>4</td></tr>

Correct?

You can do this with Javascript, however, it is difficult to suggest a method with out knowing more about the structure of your site/HTML files. I'll give it a go.

Assuming your <table> tag comes with an id (like this: <table id="myTable"> you can access it in javascript like this:

var myTable = document.getElementById('myTable');

You can create a new table like this:

var newTable = document.createElement('table');

Now you need to transpose the old tables rows into the new tables columns:

var maxColumns = 0;
// Find the max number of columns
for(var r = 0; r < myTable.rows.length; r++) {
    if(myTable.rows[r].cells.length > maxColumns) {
        maxColumns = myTable.rows[r].cells.length;
    }
}


for(var c = 0; c < maxColumns; c++) {
    newTable.insertRow(c);
    for(var r = 0; r < myTable.rows.length; r++) {
        if(myTable.rows[r].length <= c) {
            newTable.rows[c].insertCell(r);
            newTable.rows[c].cells[r] = '-';
        }
        else {
            newTable.rows[c].insertCell(r);
            newTable.rows[c].cells[r] = myTable.rows[r].cells[c].innerHTML;
        }
    }
}

This ought to do what you need. Be forewarned: not tested. Working this javascript code into an HTML page is left as an exercise for the reader. If anyone spots any errors that I missed, I be gratified if you point them out to me or simply edit to fix :)

Answer 2

Here is a tested function that will transpose a table, and it will preserve any formatting/events you had hooked to any elements within the table (ie: onclicks on cell or cell contents)

function TransposeTable(tableId)
{        
    var tbl = $('#' + tableId);
    var tbody = tbl.find('tbody');
    var oldWidth = tbody.find('tr:first td').length;
    var oldHeight = tbody.find('tr').length;
    var newWidth = oldHeight;
    var newHeight = oldWidth;

    var jqOldCells = tbody.find('td');        

    var newTbody = $("<tbody></tbody>");
    for(var y=0; y<newHeight; y++)
    {
        var newRow = $("<tr></tr>");
        for(var x=0; x<newWidth; x++)
        {
            newRow.append(jqOldCells.eq((oldWidth*x)+y));
        }
        newTbody.append(newRow);
    }

    tbody.replaceWith(newTbody);        
}

Notes: - Requires Jquery - Not tested on very large tables - Will likely crap out on tables with spanned columns/rows - Will likely crap out on tables with any combination of thead/th

So as long as your tables have no spanned cells and doesnt use thead/th, should be good to go.

Answer 3

DEMO: http://jsbin.com/abaso3/2/edit

full commented on demo source!

$(function () {
 var table = [];
     $('table td').each( function (i) {
       var half = ( $('table td').size() / 2 );      
        if ( i >= half ) {
          i = i-half; $(this).attr('class','top');
        } else {
          i = i+half; $(this).attr('class','down');
        } 
     if ( i < half )
   table.push( '<tr><td>'+$('.down').eq(i).text()+'</td>',
               '<td>'+$('.top').eq(i).text()+'</td></tr>' ); 
 });
    $('table').html( table.join('') );
});

• btw, if you want have the same result but with just CSS you need to use UL LI instead of TR TD something like this: http://designm.ag/tutorials/jquery-display-switch/