How do I display a query in PHP table - php

Question

My code
<?php
include('ConnectToDb.php');
$query = "SELECT * FROM News WHERE NewsFlag = 1 ORDER BY PostDate DESC";
$arrCount = -1;
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
$ID=$row['ID'];
$PostDate = $row['PostDate'];
$NewsHeader = stripslashes($row['NewsHeader'])
;
$NewsStart = stripslashes($row['NewsStart'])
;
echo "<hr>";
echo "<div>". date('j F Y',strtotime($PostDate)). "</div>";
echo "<p>";
$news_id = strval(sprintf("%1$04d",$ID));
$array = scanImageFolder("newsImages/newsThumbs",$news_id);
if(count($array)>0) {
echo "<img src='". $array[0]. "' alt='' />";
}
echo "<h2 style='text-align:center'><u><a href='latestnews_full.php?ID=$ID'>". $NewsHeader. "</a></u></h2>";
echo "<div style='text-align:left'><h3>";
echo $NewsStart. " ......<a href='latestnews_full.php?ID=$ID'>(more)</a><br />";
echo "<div style='text-align:center'>";
echo "</div>";
echo "</h3></div>";
}
?>
displays my data nicely on four lines with date at the top, then a picture, title and then description.
However, I want to display the data as a table like this
<table style="width: 100%">
<tr>
<td colspan="2">postDate here</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="2">picture here</td>
<td>newsHeader here</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>newsStart here</td>
</tr>
</table>
I'm not sure how to echo the table cells correctly and all of my attempts so far have resulted in a white page. Could anyone please enlighten me?

Answer 1

I'd suggest you to make your logic separated from your presentable part. Close the PHP tag once you are ready fetching the results, assigning var's etc, then:
<table style="width: 100%">
<?php
//yourcode
//...
//...
$NewsStart = stripslashes($row['NewsStart']);
$news_id = strval(sprintf("%1$04d",$ID));
$array = scanImageFolder("newsImages/newsThumbs",$news_id);
?>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><?= date('j F Y',strtotime($PostDate)) ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<?php
if(count($array)>0) {
?>
<td rowspan="2"><img src='<?= $array[0] ?>' alt='' /></td>
<?php } ?>
<td><?= $NewsHeader ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><?= $NewsStart ?> </td>
</tr>
<?php } ?>
</table>
However, it's again not so clear, and I would suggest using a template engine. If you want I can post a code with assigning vars to Smarty and output your presentation in Smarty template