php pagination - how do i limit the number of pages show - php

Question

I am having difficulties understanding how to limit the number of pages with pagination. I am trying to list my articles in my DB but I have over 500 pages! I would only like to show a max of about 15 page numbers at a time. I can't seem to understand the answers given in the other questions.
Here is my code for the Pagination:
<?php
require 'core/init.php';
$page = isset($_GET['page']) ? (int)$_GET['page'] : 1;
if(!isset($_GET['page'])){
$_GET['page'] = 1;
}
if(! (int)$_GET['page']){
$_GET['page'] = 1;
}
if($_GET['page'] < 1){
$_GET['page'] = 1;
}
$perPage = 18;
$start = ($page > 1) ? ($page * $perPage) - $perPage : 0;
$articles = DB::getInstance()->query("SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS * FROM articles ORDER BY added DESC LIMIT {$start}, {$perPage}");
foreach($articles->results() as $article){ ?>
<div class="article-container">
<h2><?php echo $article->title; ?></h2>
</div>
<?php
}
// pagination
$total = DB::getInstance()->query("SELECT FOUND_ROWS() as total");
$total = $total->results()[0];
foreach ($total as $total => $value) {
}
$pages = ceil($value / $perPage);
$maxpage = 15;
?>
<div class="pagination">
<?php if($_GET['page'] >= 2){
echo 'Prev';
}
for ($i=1; $i <= $pages; $i++) : ?>
<a href="?page=<?php echo $i; ?>" <?php if($page === $i) { echo 'class="pageSelected"'; } ?>><?php echo $i; ?></a>
<?php endfor;
if((int)$_GET['page'] != $i - 1 ){
echo 'Next';
}
?>
</div>
This works as expected but it only spits out the number of pages from 1 to 500. What is the best/easiest way to show something like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ... >
?

Answer 1

You need to change your for-cycle, the starting point and ending point
$count = 9;
$startPage = max(1, $page - $count);
$endPage = min( $pages, $page + $count);
for($i = $startPage; $i < $endPage; $i++) {
// write out the link to the page
}
then if the page is 250 it will show only 241, 242, ..., 250, ..., 257, 258