Truncate number of pages in pagination - php

Question

This might be a quite silly question, but I can't figure anything out that might help me go further. I'm looking to shorten the number of NUMBERS in my page navigation.
Instead of being like: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
I want it be like: 1, 2...7, 8
And when I go to 2, number 3 should now be seen in the numbers group.
Here is my code that is in charge of the page numbers:
<div id="user_nav_bottom">
<?php for($i=1; $i < sizeof($pages)+1; $i++) {
$strong = ($_GET['page'] == $i) ? ' dark bold' : '';
echo '<span class="normal' . $strong . '">' . $i . ', </span>';
} ?>
</div>

Answer 1

This is a modified chunk of code I wrote for paging forums.
It's output isn't exactly how you showed but should just be a matter of tweaking.
<?php
//Set up vars
$currentPage = isset($_GET["page"])? $_GET["page"] : 1;
$numPages = count($pages);
$numPages = 7;//cause I don't have the real var for testing
$howMany = 1;
?>
<?php if ($numPages > 1): ?>
<li>Page <?php echo $currentPage?> of <?php echo $numPages?></li>
<?php if ($currentPage > 1): ?>
<li>First</li>
<li><</li>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php if ($currentPage > $howMany + 1): ?>
<li>...</li>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php for ($pageIndex = $currentPage - $howMany; $pageIndex <= $currentPage + $howMany; $pageIndex++): ?>
<?php if ($pageIndex >= 1 && $pageIndex <= $numPages): ?>
<li>
<?php if ($pageIndex == $currentPage): ?>
<u>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php echo $pageIndex?>
<?php if ($pageIndex == $currentPage): ?>
</u>
<?php endif; ?>
</li>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php endfor; ?>
<?php if ($currentPage < $numPages - $howMany): ?>
<li>...</li>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php if ($currentPage < $numPages): ?>
<li>></li>
<li>Last</li>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Answer 2

Check this out: https://codereview.stackexchange.com/a/10292. This solution should solve your problem. I think its a very good approach.

Answer 3

This one shows two links before and two after the current requested link:
<div id="user_nav_bottom">
<?php
$current = $_GET['page'];
$last = count($pages)+1;
$curr0 = $current-2;
$curr1 = $current+2;
if ($curr0<=1) {
$curr0 = 1;
$curr1 = $last>5? 5 : $last;
}
if ($curr1>=$last) {
$curr0 = $last-4 < 1 ? 1 : $last-4;
$curr1 = $last;
}
// now print all links:
echo '« ';
for ($i=$curr0; $i<=$curr1; $i++) {
$style = ($i==$current)? 'font-weight:bold':'';
echo ' '.$i.' ';
}
echo '» ';
?>
</div>
This shows links like this: « 13 14 15 16 17 »
Imho it's not so difficult to add also first five and last five links by adding appropriate conditions.
Testing script here

Answer 4

What you might want to do is use the "logarithmic" pagination technique described in my answer here:
How to do page navigation for many, many pages? Logarithmic page navigation
If you set LINKS_PER_STEP to a low value like 2 or 3, it'll produce very compact output.