PHP creating hidden hyperlinks on pages - php

Question

I have a custom component being used on a Joomla 3.9 site.
The below code creates hyperlinks with proper anchors ( for 2 pages ) from a database and works OK except that it's also creating irrelevant hidden links.
You can only see the href links if you view the source of the page.
i.e.
What can I try here to make sure the code doesn't create these hidden links?
else:
JFactory::getDocument()->addStyleDeclaration('#media (max-width:540px){table.all-regions tr td{width: 100% !important;display: inline-block !important;text-align: center !important;}}');
$regionsList = '';
$regionsList .= '<table class="all-regions">';
$regions = $this->get('regions');
for($i = 0;$i <= count($regions); $i+=3):
$regionsList .= '<tr>';
$regionsList .= '<td style="width: 1%;padding: 9px; line-height: 24px;">'.$regions[$i]->region_name.'</td>';
$regionsList .= '<td style="width: 1%;padding: 9px; line-height: 24px;">'.$regions[$i+1]->region_name.'</td>';
$regionsList .= '<td style="width: 1%;padding: 9px; line-height: 24px;">'.$regions[$i+2]->region_name.'</td>';
$regionsList .= '</tr>';
endfor;
$regionsList .= '</table>';
$text = JString::str_ireplace('{%regions_list%}', $regionsList, $this->article->text);
$this->setBreadcrumbs(
array(
'country'
)
);
endif;
echo $text;
Details that may or may not help:
One page shows 3 hidden links and the other 2 hidden links. The hidden links point to the same page I'm currently on. The page with 3 hidden links is showing 3 even columns of links while the one with 2 hidden links has one row with 5 links and the other 2 rows with 4 links

Answer 1

There are better ways to do this whole thing, but without rewriting the code, you need to see if those elements are set and aren't empty or else you will get empty anchors:
if(!empty($regions[$i]->region_name)) {
$regionsList .= '<td style="width: 1%;padding: 9px; line-height: 24px;">'.$regions[$i]->region_name.'</td>';
}
if(!empty($regions[$i+1]->region_name)) {
$regionsList .= '<td style="width: 1%;padding: 9px; line-height: 24px;">'.$regions[$i+1]->region_name.'</td>';
}
if(!empty($regions[$i+2]->region_name)) {
$regionsList .= '<td style="width: 1%;padding: 9px; line-height: 24px;">'.$regions[$i+2]->region_name.'</td>';
}

Answer 2

As #AbraCadaver hinted, your code could use some DRYing out and some polishing up.
Differing from Abra's suggested resolution, it is important to consistently output the same number of cells in each row of the html table for valid html markup. If there is no region data at a particular index, just print an empty cell.
Rather than repeating the same cell markup text and inserting manually incremented indexes, use a cell template string and a for() loop.
I also recommend moving all your styling to the css declaration and referencing .all-regions td.
Suggested rewrite (not tested)
$html = '<table class="all-regions">';
$cellTemplate = '<td style="width: 1%; padding: 9px; line-height: 24px;">%s</td>';
$regions = $this->get('regions');
foreach (array_chunk($regions, 3) as $chunk) {
$html .= '<tr>';
for ($i = 0; $i < 3; ++$i) {
if (!isset($chunk[$i])) {
$html .= '<td></td>';
} else {
$html .= sprintf(
$cellTemplate,
JUri::root(),
$country
strtolower(str_replace(' ', '-', $chunk[$i]->region_name)),
$chunk[$i]->region_name
);
}
}
$html .= '</tr>';
}
$html .= '</table>';
$text = JString::str_ireplace('{%regions_list%}', $html, $this->article->text);
$this->setBreadcrumbs(['country']);