can't seem to get the variable to change - php

Question

I am trying to display blog posts from a MySQL data base into an unordered list. I want each row to display the title an image and short description of 3 entries. Here is an example:
<ul class="submissions">
<li class="first">
<a href="url"> <img alt="image Alt" class="blog_image" height="198" src="image url" title="blog title" width="276" />
</a> <div class="submissions_content">
<h3>blog title</h3>
<p> blog discription .</p>
</div>
</li> <li class="second">
<a href="url">
<img alt="image Alt" class="blog_image" height="198" src="image url" title="blog title" width="276" />
</a> <div class="submissions_content">
<h3>blog title</h3>
<p> blog discription .</p>
</div>
</li> <li class="last">
<a href="url">
<img alt="image Alt" class="blog_image" height="198" src="image url" title="blog title" width="276" />
</a> <div class="submissions_content">
<h3>blog title</h3>
<p> blog discription .</p>
</div>
</li> <li class="first">
<a href="url">
<img alt="image Alt" class="blog_image" height="198" src="image url" title="blog title" width="276" />
</a> <div class="submissions_content">
<h3>blog title</h3>
<p> blog discription .</p>
</div>
</li> <li class="second">
<a href="url">
<img alt="image Alt" class="blog_image" height="198" src="image url" title="blog title" width="276" />
</a> <div class="submissions_content">
<h3>blog title</h3>
<p> blog discription .</p>
</div>
</li> <li class="last">
<a href="url">
<img alt="image Alt" class="blog_image" height="198" src="image url" title="blog title" width="276" />
</a> <div class="submissions_content">
<h3>blog title</h3>
<p> blog discription .</p>
</div>
</li></ul>
You see how the li class changes for each entry? I tried this code but the li class ends up being the same for every entry:
<ul class="submissions">
<?php
mysql_connect ('localhost', 'root', '072868') ;
mysql_select_db ('test');
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tbp_blog ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 5";
$result = mysql_query($sql) or print ("Can't select entries from table tbp_blog.<br />" . $sql . "<br />" . mysql_error());
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$date = date("l F d Y g:i:s A", $row['timestamp']);
$link = $row['link'];
$title = stripslashes($row['title']);
$description = stripslashes($row['description']);
$entry = stripslashes($row['entry']);
$image_link = $row['image_link'];
$image_alt = $row['image_alt'];
$id = $row['id'];
$li_class = 'first';
?>
<li class="<?php echo $li_class ; ?>">
<img alt="<?php echo $image_alt; ?>" class="blog_image" height="198" src="<?php echo $image_link; ?>" title="<?php echo $title; ?>" width="276" />
<div class="submissions_content"><h3><?php echo $title; ?></h3>
<p><?php echo $description; ?></p>
</div>
</li>
<?php if ($li_class == 'first') {
$li_class = 'second';
} elseif ($li_class == 'second') {
$li_class = 'last';
} elseif ($li_class == 'fist') {
$li_class == 'first';
}
?>
<?php
}
?>
</ul>
what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Move $li_class = 'first'; outside of your while condition. You're resetting it on every iteration.

Answer 2

$li_class = 'first';
put this line OUTSIDE of your while loop:
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {