Showing data from the db on other parts of the page - php

Question

Hi guys I am relatively new to php and am wondering how there is a cleaner way to retrieve data from my database and show it across different parts of the webpage?
For example see my current code...
<?php
$result = mysqli_query($mysqli,"SELECT * FROM members WHERE email='".$_SESSION['email']."'");
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
if($_SESSION['email'] == $row['email']) {
// If you find the right user with the same E-Mail address, DO SOME COOL THINGS :)
}
echo '<h2>'. $row['username'] . '</h2>' ;
echo 'Hi, I am a ' . $row['yourage'] . ' year old ' . $row['orientation'] . ' ' . $row['gender'] . ' looking for a ' . $row['lookingfor'] . '.<br /><br />';
echo 'I am currently living in the ' . $row['location'] . ' area.';
echo '<button>Get in touch</button>' . '<br>';
echo '<br /><br />';
echo '<hr />';
echo '<h2>About me:</h2>';
echo $row['aboutme'] . '<br>';
}
mysqli_close($mysqli);
?>
If I copy this again on the page it kills the script but wondering what the best practice is?

Answer 1

First of all, a much better approach to this would be to separate your database and view code, for example by using an MVC framework (such as CakePHP).
But here is what I would do if was doing this a similar way to you: (You are only selecting one result from the database, if you were selecting many, this would be different.)
At top of page:
<?php
$email = $_SESSION['email'];
$result = mysqli_query($mysqli,"SELECT * FROM members WHERE email='".$email."'");
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
$member = $row;
}
mysqli_close($mysqli);
?>
then whenever you need to display the data in the page: (for example)
My username is <?php echo $member['username']; ?>

Answer 2

Maybe you should separate the query script (below) from the viewing part.
query.php
<?php
$result = mysqli_query($mysqli,"SELECT * FROM members WHERE email='".$_SESSION['email']."'");
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
if($_SESSION['email'] == $row['email']) {
// If you find the right user with the same E-Mail address, DO SOME COOL THINGS :)
}
$returnArray[] = $row['username'];
$returnArray[] = $row['yourage'];
//and so on;
}
mysqli_close($mysqli);
?>
Some view.php (or index.html renamed to index.php):
<?php
include('query.php');
var_dump($returnArray);
//Or with a foreach or however
But you should learn about MVC Model View Controller and as others said, use OO programming

Answer 3

Learn ajax- this will help you separate this code from your application. Just make the ajax call to this php and get the result and show them how you want to show.
For example-
In a your application, say app.html, at the point you want to fetch something from db-
$.ajax({
type: "GET",
url: "fetch.php", // your aove php file
function(response){
console.log(response); // you'll get all the rows here
response=JSON.parse(response);
for(var i=0; i<response.length; i++){
console.log(response[i].username); // show results in view
....
}
}
});
fetch.php
$myrows = array();
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
array_push($myrows, $row);
}
echo json_encode($myrows);

Answer 4

The reality is you want a templating engine of some sort to filter your database results directly into the template.
So rather than dealing with echo commands to design a page, you want a raw template and then to inject data into that template from your database array.
You can use something standardized like Mustache or roll your own fairly easily (although rudimentary):
$output = '';
$tpl = fopen('template.html','r');
$tpl = fread($tpl, 100000);
$templateVars = array();
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
$temporaryRow = $tpl;
foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
$temporaryRow = preg_replace("/{{$k}}/i",$v,$temporaryRow);
}
$output .= $temporaryRow;
}
echo $output;
And then your template.html could be something like
<div>Hello, {{username}}</div>