PHP If statement, suitable? - php

Question

I'm working on a small university assignment to build a simple e-commerce engine using PHP for a website.
I currently have the following script setup to display products within a category, all of which are retrieved from a MySQL database.
http://example.com/category.php?id=2
The problem I am currently having is that for each product displayed the script is simply echoing each one side by side into a new table entry. This is causing them to go across the page rather than vertically.
What would be the best way to alter this code to have for example a maximum of three products per row? An If loop or something along those lines? Would appreciate the support!
<?php
//Create Session
session_start();
//Connect to database
include "conn.php";
//Retrieve Header
include "header.php";
//Get Category ID
if (isset($_GET['id'])){
$CategoryID = $_GET['id'];
//QUERY collects product name, and product ID.
$q="SELECT ProductID, ProductName, Price,img FROM Products WHERE CategoryID=$CategoryID";
//QUERY collects Product Category descriptions
$d="SELECT `Desc` FROM ProductCategories WHERE CategoryID=$CategoryID";
//retrive and execute SQL query results and save into a variable
$result = mysqli_query($_SESSION['conn'],$q);
$result2 = mysqli_query($_SESSION['conn'],$d) or die(mysql_error());
//Retrieve Product Category Description
echo "<div>";
while ($myResult = mysqli_fetch_row($result2)){ //Create an array
echo "<p>".$myResult[0]."</p>";
}
echo "</div>";
//Retrieve Products in category
echo "<div align='center'><table border='1px' bordercolor='#000000' width='200px'><tr>"; //Define table, row and div containing each product
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_row($result)){ //Create an array
echo "<td>"; //Create table cell
echo "<p><img src=".$row[3]."></p>"; //product image small (250x250 Pixels)
echo "<p align='center'><a href='product.php?id=".$row[0]."'>".$row[1]." </a></p>"; //Product ID Link and Name
echo "<p align='center'>£ ".$row[2]."</p>";
echo "</td>"; //Close table cell
}
echo "</tr></table></div>";//Close table, div and row
mysqli_free_result($result);
}
// Retireve Footer
include "footer.php";
?>
I am new when it comes to programming of any kind, so would appreciate patience/any support you could give me. Also I am aware of the SQL injection problem and will fix this at a later date.

Answer 1

Well you would keep track of your while iterations with a counter then everytime you hit $counter%3 === 0 (replace 3 with whatever you want per row) you would close the tr and start a new one:
$counter = 0;
$perRow = 3;
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_row($result)){ //Create an array
if($counter === 0) {
echo '<tr>';
} else if ($counter%$perRow === 0 ) {
echo '</tr><tr>';
}
echo "<td>"; //Create table cell
echo "<p><img src=".$row[3]."></p>"; //product image small (250x250 Pixels)
echo "<p align='center'><a href='product.php?id=".$row[0]."'>".$row[1]." </a></p>"; //Product ID Link and Name
echo "<p align='center'>£ ".$row[2]."</p>";
echo "</td>";
$counter++;
}

Answer 2

Here you go
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_row($result)){ //Create an array
echo "<tr><td>"; //Create table cell
echo "<p><img src=".$row[3]."></p>"; //product image small (250x250 Pixels)
echo "<p align='center'><a href='product.php?id=".$row[0]."'>".$row[1]." </a></p>"; //Product ID Link and Name
echo "<p align='center'>£ ".$row[2]."</p>";
echo "</td></tr>"; //Close table cell
}
echo "</table></div>";//Close table, div and row
The TR needs to be inside the while since tr is a row

Answer 3

You can do it the old fashion way with tables and iteration counters. You could also use a more CSS based approach.
Loop your result set, and build the inner HTML part (rows, columns)
$rows = '';
while ($myResult = mysqli_fetch_row($result2)){ //Create an array
$rows .= '<div class="inner">'.$myResult[0].'</div>';
}
Decide on the width of the inner columns x and make them float left or right, And make the outer div width * x
<style type="text/css">
div.box {
width:900px;
}
div.inner {
float:left;
width:300px;
}
</style>
And finally echo your HTML
<div class="box"><?php echo $rows; ?></div>

Answer 4

What you need is to keep track of the position you're at. If you want 3 cols per row it would be something like:
$count = 1;
echo '<table>';
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_row($result)) {
$tmp = $count % 3; //get the remainder
if ($tmp==1) {
if ($count!=1) {
//not the first row so close the last one
echo "</tr>";
}
//start row
echo "<tr>";
}
//show your <td> info
$count++;
}
echo '</tr></table>';