PHP echoing MySQL data into HTML table - php

Question

So I'm trying to make a HTML table that gets data from a MySQL database and outputs it to the user. I'm doing so with PHP, which I'm extremely new to, so please excuse my messy code!
The code that I'm using is: braces for storm of "your code is awful!"
<table class="table table-striped table-hover ">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>#</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Description</th>
<th>Reward</th>
<th>Column heading</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost", "notarealuser", 'notmypassword');
for ($i = 1; $i <= 20; $i++) {
$items = ($mysqli->query("SELECT id FROM `items` WHERE id = $i"));
echo ("<tr>");
echo ("
<td>
while ($db_field = mysqli_fetch_assoc($items)) {
print $db_field['id'];
}</td>");
$items = ($mysqli->query("SELECT name FROM `items` WHERE id = $i"));
echo ("
<td>
while ($db_field = mysqli_fetch_assoc($items)) {
print $db_field['name'];
}</td>");
$items = ($mysqli->query("SELECT descrip FROM `items` WHERE id = $i"));
echo ("
<td>
while ($db_field = mysqli_fetch_assoc($items)) {
print $db_field['descrip'];
}</td>");
$items = ($mysqli->query("SELECT reward FROM `items` WHERE id = $i"));
echo ("
<td>
while ($db_field = mysqli_fetch_assoc($items)) {
print $db_field['reward'];
}</td>");
$items = ($mysqli->query("SELECT img FROM `items` WHERE id = $i"));
echo ("
<td>
while ($db_field = mysqli_fetch_assoc($items)) {
print $db_field['img'];
}</td>");
echo ("</tr>");
}
?>
</tbody>
</table>
However, this code is not working - it simply causes the page to output an immediate 500 Internal Server Error. IIS logs show it as a 500:0 - generic ISE. Any ideas?

Answer 1

You are mixing mysql and mysqli, not closing php code block and you are not selecting a database. Plus you don't have to run a query for each field
Try this:
<table class="table table-striped table-hover ">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>#</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Description</th>
<th>Reward</th>
<th>Column heading</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<?php
$con = new mysqli("host","user", "password", "database");
$execItems = $con->query("SELECT id, name, descrip, reward, img FROM `items` WHERE id BETWEEN 1 AND 20 ");
while($infoItems = $execItems->fetch_array()){
echo "
<tr>
<td>".$infoItems['id']."</td>
<td>".$infoItems['name']."</td>
<td>".$infoItems['descrip']."</td>
<td>".$infoItems['reward']."</td>
<td>".$infoItems['img']."</td>
</tr>
";
}
?>
</tbody>
</table>

Answer 2

<table class="table table-striped table-hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>#</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Description</th>
<th>Reward</th>
<th>Column heading</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<?php
$con = mysqli_connect("hostname","username",'password');
$sql= "SELECT * FROM `items` WHERE id <20 ";
$items = (mysqli_query($sql));
while ( $db_field = mysqli_fetch_assoc($items) ) {?>
<tr><td><?php echo $db_field['id'];?></td></tr>
<tr><td><?php echo $db_field['name'];?></td></tr>
<tr><td><?php echo $db_field['descrip'];?></td></tr>
<tr><td><?php echo $db_field['reward'];?></td></tr>
<tr><td><?php echo $db_field['img'];?></td></tr>
<?php}
</tbody>
</table>
Try these, not tested

Answer 3

Where is the question?
There's many problems with this code.
First, you are confused between PHP and HTML.
Code between is PHP. It's executed on the server, you can have loops and variables and assignments there. And if you want some HTML there you use "echo".
Code outside is HTML - it's sent to the browser as is.
Second - what you seem to be doing is querying each field separately. This is not how you work with SQL.
Here's more or less what you need to do:
//Query all rows from 1 to 20:
$items = $mysqli->query("SELECT id,name,descrip,reward,img FROM `items` WHERE id between 1 and 20");
//Go through rows
while ( $row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($items) )
{
echo "<tr><td>{$db_field['id']}</td>";
//echo the rest of the fields the same way
});

Answer 4

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the code isn't working and that's because there's several basic errors. I'd strongly suggest doing some hard reading around the topic of PHP, especially since you're using databases, which, if accessed with insecure code can pose major security risks.
Firstly, you've set-up your connection using the procedural mysql_connect function but then just a few lines down you've switched to object-orientation by trying to call the method mysqli::query on a non object as it was never instantiated during your connection.
http://php.net/manual/en/mysqli.construct.php
Secondly, PHP echo() doesn't require the parentheses. PHP sometimes describes it as a function but it's a language construct and the parentheses will cause problems if you try to parse multiple parameters.
http://php.net/manual/en/function.echo.php
Thirdly, you can't simply switch from HTML and PHP and vice-versa with informing the server/browser. If you wish to do this, you need to either concatenate...
echo "<td>".while($db_filed = mysqli_fetch_assoc($item)) {
print $db_field['id'];
}."</td>;
Or preferably (in my opinion it looks cleaner)
<td>
<?php
while($db_filed = mysqli_fetch_assoc($item)) {
print $db_field['id'];
}
?>
</td>
However, those examples are based on your code which is outputting each ID into the same cell which I don't think is your goal so you should be inserting the cells into the loop as well so that each ID belongs to its own cell. Furthermore, I'd recommend using echo over print (it's faster).
Something else that may not be a problem now but could evolve into one is that you've used a constant for you FOR loop. If you need to ever pull more than 20 rows from your table then you will have to manually increase this figure and if you're table has less than 20 rows you will receive an error because the loop will be trying to access table rows that don't exist.
I'm no PHP expert so some of my terminology might be incorrect but hopefully what knowledge I do have will be of use. Again, I'd strongly recommend getting a good knowledge of the language before using it.