Need help simplifying my php table

Question

I am relatively new to php and have a feeling that I am going the long way round when displaying data from mysql.

I have a table a I want to show a few fields from my database.

How would I achieve this without having to echo every bit of the table???

Here is the code:

     <?php
$query1 = mysql_send("SELECT firstname, lastname, email, user, country FROM customers WHERE id='".$_COOKIE['custid']."'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query1))

{

      echo     ' <table id="account_table" style="width:550px; border:none; ">
              <tr>
                <td width="155">Contact Name</td>';
      echo          '<td width="335">';

    echo $row['firstname'] ;
    echo '&nbsp;';
    echo $row['lastname'];

    echo '</td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td>Email Address</td>
          <td>';
   echo $row['email'];

  echo '  </td>
             </tr>
              <tr>
                <td>Username</td>
                <td>' ;

    echo $row['user'];

    echo '</td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td>Country</td>
                <td>';

    echo $row['country'];

    echo '</td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td>Time Zone</td>
                <td>GMT+1</td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td>Activated</td>
                <td>16 Dec 2009</td>
              </tr>
            </table>';

            }
?>

Answer 1

I would suggest to look at some templating engine like Smarty, that would allow you to separate presentation from php code.

Answer 2

The basics seem right, although you will need to move the <table> tag out of the while loop, now you are creating a table for every entry and my guess is that that´s not what you want.

You also need to prepare your output for output to the browser with something like htmlspecialchars($row[...]). That way you avoid potential problems if the output contains html tags (javascript, etc.).

Answer 3

You can fetch all data into an array first and then iterate over that array. There is no need to echo all that HTML with PHP.

At the top of your file, you should do all the processing (i.e. getting, validating data) and in the remainder you just write plain HTML, only printing the values with PHP.

This already gives you a certain degree of separation. Others mention template engines (Smarty, etc.). I don't think that you really need that, because PHP itself is a template engine.
Just don't get tempted to do sophisticated stuff in your presentation ;)

Also the alternative syntax for control structures is very useful for using in combination with the presentation as it is imho much more readable.

---

I changed the table structure a bit, because you were not generation valid HTML (you create a lot tables with the same ID in your original code).
This just generates one table, with a row for each customer.

<?php
$customers = array();
$query1 = mysql_send("SELECT firstname, lastname, email, user, country FROM customers WHERE id='".$_COOKIE['custid']."'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query1)) {
    $cusomters[] = $row;
}
?>

<table id="account_table" style="width:550px; border:none;">
    <tr>
       <th width="155">Contact Name</th>
       <th>Email Address</th>
       <th>Username</th>
       <th>Country</th>
       <th>Time Zone</th>
       <th>Activated</th>
    </tr>
<?php foreach($customers as $customer): ?>
    <tr>           
        <td width="335">
             <?php echo $row['firstname'] ?>
             &nbsp;
             <?php echo $row['lastname'] ?>
        </td>          
        <td><?php echo $row['email'] ?> </td>     
        <td><?php echo $row['user'] ?></td>           
        <td><?php echo $row['country'] ?></td>
        <td>GMT+1</td>
        <td>16 Dec 2009</td>
    </tr>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</table>

Answer 4

First some advices, keep a window/tab open to the php manual. (ie, mysql_send() function doesn't exist).

Indent your code, and try to find a consistent convention to keep your code readable.

You're inserting your table markup into your while loop which is wrong. Your table should wrap your loop.

Using $_COOKIE as is to select from your database is really bad. Filter and sanitize your input before to use it in any query.

To avoid mixing data presentation and business logic, you can take a look to template engine.

Look at 19 Promising PHP Template Engines to find one, or take a look at the wikipedia list.