Start tag em seen in table - php

Question

I am coding php and seen this error while I trying to do a HTM5 validator. But the things is there is no in my whole file. Any suggestions what is wrong here?
Error Line 27, Column 4: Start tag em seen in table.
<em><br />
Edit note : I rarely want to add this code here due to the fact that's it is long and have nothing to do with the error (like I said above, there is no tag in the html)
<section>
<table>
<?php
include("./settings.php");
$conn = #mysqli_connect($host, $user, $pwd, $sql_db);
if (!$conn) {
echo "<p>Databse connection error</p>";
} else {
$eoinumber = trim($_POST["num"]);
$lname = trim($_POST["lname"]);
$query = "SELECT * FROM eoi WHERE EOInumber = $eoinumber AND lname = '$lname'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn,$query);
if (!$result) {
echo "<p>There is something wrong with the $query</p>";
} else {
$temp = mysqli_num_rows($result);
if ($temp == 0) {?>
<p>0 enquiry found. Please check again your EOInumber and last name</p>
<?php } else {
?>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>EOI number</th>
<th>Job ID</th>
<th>First Name</th>
<th>Last Name</th>
<th>Date of Birth</th>
<th>Gender</th>
<th>Street</th>
<th>Town</th>
<th>State</th>
<th>Postcode</th>
<th>Mail</th>
<th>Telephone</th>
<th>Skills</th>
<th>Other Skills</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<?php
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
echo "<tbody>";
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td>",$row["EOInumber"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["job_num"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["fname"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["lname"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["bday"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["gender"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["street"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["town"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["state"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["postcode"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["mail"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["tele"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["skill"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["other"],"</td>";
echo "</tr>";
echo "</tbody>";
// echo "<p>Sucess</p>";
}
?>
</table>

Answer 1

Regardless of the presence or otherwise of the <em> tag, you are going to run into problems because you are opening the table tag and then potentially putting a <p> or other elements directly inside it, which is illegal (you can put <thead>, <tbody>, <caption>, <tr>, <tfoot> elements inside a <table>). It would be better if you opened the table after checking whether the queries had run successfully or not, i.e.:
<section>
<?php
include("./settings.php");
$conn = #mysqli_connect($host, $user, $pwd, $sql_db);
if (!$conn) {
echo "<p>Databse connection error</p>";
} else {
$eoinumber = trim($_POST["num"]);
$lname = trim($_POST["lname"]);
$query = "SELECT * FROM eoi WHERE EOInumber = $eoinumber AND lname = '$lname'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn,$query);
if (!$result) {
echo "<p>There is something wrong with the $query</p>";
} else {
$temp = mysqli_num_rows($result);
if ($temp == 0) {
echo "<p>0 enquiry found. Please check again your EOInumber and last name</p>";
} else {
echo "<table>";
... echo the table header...
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
... echo table results...
}
echo "</table>";
}
}
?>

Answer 2

You missed a few }
So this should work:
<section>
<table>
<?php
include("./settings.php");
$conn = #mysqli_connect($host, $user, $pwd, $sql_db);
if (!$conn) {
echo "<p>Databse connection error</p>";
exit;
}
$eoinumber = trim($_POST["num"]);
$lname = trim($_POST["lname"]);
$query = "SELECT * FROM eoi WHERE EOInumber = $eoinumber AND lname = '$lname'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn,$query);
if (!$result) {
echo "<p>There is something wrong with the $query</p>";
exit;
} else {
$temp = mysqli_num_rows($result);
}
if ($temp == 0) { ?>
<p>0 enquiry found. Please check again your EOInumber and last name</p>
<?php } else { ?>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>EOI number</th>
<th>Job ID</th>
<th>First Name</th>
<th>Last Name</th>
<th>Date of Birth</th>
<th>Gender</th>
<th>Street</th>
<th>Town</th>
<th>State</th>
<th>Postcode</th>
<th>Mail</th>
<th>Telephone</th>
<th>Skills</th>
<th>Other Skills</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<?php
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
echo "<tbody>";
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td>",$row["EOInumber"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["job_num"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["fname"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["lname"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["bday"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["gender"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["street"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["town"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["state"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["postcode"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["mail"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["tele"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["skill"],"</td>";
echo "<td>",$row["other"],"</td>";
echo "</tr>";
echo "</tbody>";
// echo "<p>Sucess</p>";
}
}
?>
</table>
<!--...-->