1111. appearing after print sequence - php - php

Question

Morning,
I have some code that takes a string of shoe sizes, explodes it and then puts it in a table. The code works perfectly and the info is displayed correctly on the page but after the table there is always a few 1's after the table. I'm really confused about this.
So the table looks like this (in columns of three on the webpage)
Available in the following sizes:
3 4 5
6 9 10
111
Here's the Codes, for the purpose of the example $x = 3|4|6|10|9
function get_sizes_pipe($x) {
$counter = 0;
$splits = explode("|",$x);
asort($splits);
$x = print "<table class='greentable'>";
$x .= print "<thead><tr><th scope='col' colspan='3' abbr='Starter'>Available in the following sizes:</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr>";
foreach ($splits as $split) {
$entry = print "<td>".$split."</td>";
if($counter == 2){
$entry .= print "</tr><tr>";
$counter =0;
} else {
$counter++;
}
}
if($counter == 1){
$entry .= print "<td></td><td></td>";
}elseif ($counter == 2) {
$entry .= print "<td></td>";
}
$x.= $entry;
$x.= print "</tr></tbody></table>";
return $x;
}
I'd really appreciate any help.
Thanks
Chris

Answer 1

I don't know why do you concatenate print with some variable, but you should know that function print returns 1 (always) as a result of execution, so doing
$x .= print 'some value';
is the same as
print 'some value';
$x .= 1;

Answer 2

try this:do not use print you are already appending it to $x just echo $x;
<?php
function get_sizes_pipe($x) {
$counter = 0;
$splits = explode("|",$x);
asort($splits);
$x = "<table class='greentable'>";
$x .= "<thead><tr><th scope='col' colspan='3' abbr='Starter'>Available in the following sizes:</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr>";
foreach ($splits as $split) {
$entry .= "<td>".$split."</td>";//use . to concate here
if($counter == 2){
$entry .= "</tr><tr>";
$counter =0;
} else {
$counter++;
}
}
if($counter == 1){
$entry .="<td></td><td></td>";
}elseif ($counter == 2) {
$entry .= "<td></td>";
}
$x.= $entry;
$x.="</tr></tbody></table>";
echo $x;
}
get_sizes_pipe("1|2|3|4");

Answer 3

Rather than using string concatenation ( which becomes inefficient with large strings ) add html strings to an array and return the flattened html from your function.
function get_sizes_pipe($x) {
$counter = 0;
$splits = explode("|",$x);
asort( $splits );
$html=array();
$html[]="
<table class='greentable'>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope='col' colspan='3' abbr='Starter'>Available in the following sizes:</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>";
foreach( $splits as $split ) {
$html[]="<td>".$split."</td>";
if( $counter == 2 ){
$html[]="</tr><tr>";
$counter=0;
} else {
$counter++;
}
}
$html[]=( $counter == 1 ) ? "<td></td><td></td>" : "<td></td>";
$html[]="
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>";
return implode( PHP_EOL, $html );
}
/* call your function with whatever value of `$x` you need */
echo get_sizes_pipe( $what_is_x );