while loop check values one by one - php

Question

Not sure how to name correctly this question so feel free to edit if is needed.
I have 12 boxes one per month, and each box display:
1 - A message like "Sold" or "Available" depending on the info coming from the database.
2 - The name of the month and the year, if the month is older than the current month the year will be increased by one.
The info coming from the database have a few values separated by a | symbol, the pertinent one to check is the las one, an example value of $row['custom'] is: 93 | Supper | New Port | August - 2012
My problem is that I need to update each box with their "status" and with the current script only the las entry on the database is used to update the boxes, so In cases where i know there is two or more boxes that should display the message "Sold", only the most recent is the updated.
How can I modify the following script to update one by one box ?
The problem is the way I'm querying the database or something else ?
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
Code only for 2 of 12 month, to make things short
<?php
$month = date("m"); // Current month
$year = date("Y"); // Current year
$next = strtotime(date("d-m-Y", strtotime($now)) . "+1 year");
$nextyear = date("Y", $next); // Next year
// Check if this month is gone or not, if gone replace current year with next year
$january = "01";
$february = "02";
if ($month > $january) {
$jan = 'January - ' . $nextyear; } else { $jan = 'January - ' . $year;}
if ($month > $february) {
$feb = 'February - ' . $nextyear; } else { $feb = 'January - ' . $year;}
//Get info from Database
$query = "SELECT `custom` FROM `payments` WHERE `status` = 'Pending' OR `status` = 'Completed'";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$check_custom = explode(" | ", $row['custom']);
$month_sold = $check_custom[3];
}
// Check if month is sold or not
if ($month_sold == $jan) { $jan_status = 'Sold';} else { $jan_status = 'Available';}
if ($month_sold == $feb) { $feb_status = 'Sold';} else { $feb_status = 'Available';}
//Output the months and their status
?>
<div class="month">
<div class="mname"><?php echo $jan;?></div>
<div class="<?php echo $jan_status;?>">
<?php echo $jan_status;?>
</div>
<?php if($jan_status == 'Available') {
echo 'This month is ' . $jan_status . '.';
} else {
echo 'This month has been ' . $jan_status . '.';} ?>
</div>
<div class="month">
<div class="mname"><?php echo $feb;?></div>
<div class="<?php echo $feb_status;?>">
<?php echo $feb_status;?>
</div>
<?php if($feb_status == 'Available') {
echo 'This month is ' . $feb_status . '.';
} else {
echo 'This month has been ' . $feb_status . '.';} ?>
</div>

Answer 1

You misplaced the closing bracket of while and move the `$jan_status='Available' from inside while loop to just above it; Here is the modified code
<?php
$month = date("m"); // Current month
$year = date("Y"); // Current year
$next = strtotime(date("d-m-Y", strtotime($now)) . "+1 year");
$nextyear = date("Y", $next); // Next year
// Check if this month is gone or not, if gone replace current year with next year
$january = "01";
$february = "02";
if ($month > $january) {
$jan = 'January - ' . $nextyear; } else { $jan = 'January - ' . $year;}
if ($month > $february) {
$feb = 'February - ' . $nextyear; } else { $feb = 'January - ' . $year;}
//Get info from Database
$query = "SELECT `custom` FROM `payments` WHERE `status` = 'Pending' OR `status` = 'Completed'";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
$jan_status = 'Available';
$feb_status = 'Available';
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$check_custom = explode(" | ", $row['custom']);
$month_sold = $check_custom[3];
// Check if month is sold or not
if ($month_sold == $jan) { $jan_status = 'Sold';}
if ($month_sold == $feb) { $feb_status = 'Sold';}
}//th closing bracket should be here;
//Output the months and their status
?>
<div class="month">
<div class="mname"><?php echo $jan;?></div>
<div class="<?php echo $jan_status;?>">
<?php echo $jan_status;?>
</div>
<?php if($jan_status == 'Available') {
echo 'This month is ' . $jan_status . '.';
} else {
echo 'This month has been ' . $jan_status . '.';} ?>
</div>
<div class="month">
<div class="mname"><?php echo $feb;?></div>
<div class="<?php echo $feb_status;?>">
<?php echo $feb_status;?>
</div>
<?php if($feb_status == 'Available') {
echo 'This month is ' . $feb_status . '.';
} else {
echo 'This month has been ' . $feb_status . '.';} ?>
</div>

Answer 2

Every time you run $row = mysql_fetch_array(), it replaces the contents of $row with the next row from the database. Look at the while loop: it assigns values to $check_custom and $month_sold, but doesn't do anything with them before overwriting them with new values. You need to move all your code for parsing the database output and generating the info for a given month inside the loop. Then output or save the information you want to display for that month before it goes on to the next one.
There's a lot you could do to make your code simpler and easier to maintain. For example, I would make an array for the months and iterate over that, rather than creating a separate set of variables and separate output code for each month. Also, what you're doing with your custom column right now is using a field in your database table to store another tiny table. This creates a lot of problems -- if you broke that data out into multiple columns, you could just do a query for the appropriate month and year.

Answer 3

Move your status checks into the loop so that it operates on every row from the database. Otherwise you only wind up referring to the row returned by the last call of mysql_fetch_array. I would recommend using a switch statement for readability, though.
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$check_custom = explode(" | ", $row['custom']);
$month_sold = $check_custom[3];
// Check if month is sold or not
if ($month_sold == $jan) { $jan_status = 'Sold';}
else { $jan_status = 'Available';}
if ($month_sold == $feb) { $feb_status = 'Sold';}
else { $feb_status = 'Available';}
}