Getting a conditional message out of a foreach loop - php

Question

I'm displaying all the posts in the category that have a valid date as follows -
<?php $blog = $pages->find('posts');
foreach($blog->children() as $blogpost): ?>
<?php if ($blogpost->title() <= $latest && $blogpost->category == $thisCat): ?>
//HTML for displaying post goes here
<?php endif ?>
<?php end foreach ?>
That works fine when those posts validate my condition, and displays nothing if it doesn't. What I want to do is display an error message (like 'there are no posts here') when there are no posts that pass the condition. I can't just do a simple else condition in that if query because it's inside the foreach loop. I can't take the if query out of the foreach loop because it relies on a variable that is defined as part of it ($blogpost).
Kind of stuck in this catch 22... Any suggestions?

Answer 1

How about...
<?php
$blog = $pages->find('posts');
$found_something = false;
foreach($blog->children() as $blogpost) {
if ($blogpost->title() <= $latest && $blogpost->category == $thisCat) {
$found_something = true;
//HTML for displaying post goes here
}
}
if(!$found_something) {
// display error message
}
?>
By the way, is there a specific reason why you're using the alternative PHP syntax?

Answer 2

I'd create a counter variable which increments each time when you display a post.
<?php $blog = $pages->find('posts');
$displayedPosts = 0;
foreach($blog->children() as $blogpost): ?>
<?php if ($blogpost->title() <= $latest && $blogpost->category == $thisCat):
$displayedPosts++; ?>
//HTML for displaying post goes here
<?php endif ?>
<?php end foreach ?>
<?php
if ($displayedPosts == 0) {
echo 'ERROR!';
}
?>
Using a boolean variable (as tmh did) is probably better in this case unless you want to count the posts.

Answer 3

Just count your posts , if it's 0 display just the message , else execute foreach loop :
<?php $blog = $pages->find('posts');
if(count($blog->children())==0){ echo 'No post Here'; }
else{
foreach($blog->children() as $blogpost): ?>
<?php if ($blogpost->title() <= $latest && $blogpost->category == $thisCat): ?>
//HTML for displaying post goes here
<?php endif ?>
<?php end foreach ?>
<?php } ?>