Alternate multiple columns in an html table with php - php

Question

How can I output an alternate multiple column like this
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td> userid 1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> userid 2</td> <td>userid 3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> userid 4 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> userid5 </td> <td>userid6 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> userid7 </td>
<td>userid8 </td>
<td> userid9 </td>
<td>userid10</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<table border=1>
My table query is like this:
$result = mysql_query("SELECT id,name FROM `tbl-record`") or die(mysql_error());
Classic example in action is like this:
http://www.cashcashpinoy.com
A table with five rows and an alternate 1x2x1x2x4 columns (TD ) on each rows ( TR )

Answer 1

Since this is in a table, you can use the colspan attribute on the td elements, like this:
<table>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">Full width data.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">Half width data.</td>
<td colspan="2">Half width data.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="1">Quarter width data.</td>
<td colspan="1">Quarter width data.</td>
<td colspan="1">Quarter width data.</td>
<td colspan="1">Quarter width data.</td>
</tr>
</table>
You can do this with any number of columns.
If you want to assign a number of columns dynamically, you'll want to have a set number of results to provide some consistency, which you could do using a LIMIT along with your query.
$results; // This is all of the results of your query
$colOps = array(1,2,4); // Different colspan values
$numCols = 4; // Maximum columns to allow per line
echo '<table border="1">';
while(count($results) > 0) {
$ind = mt_rand(0, 2); // Generate a random index number
if(count($results) >= $colOps[$ind]) {
echo '<tr>';
for($i = 0; $i < $cols; $i++)
echo '<td colspan="'.$colOps[$ind].'">'.array_shift($results).'</td>';
echo '</tr>';
}
}
echo '</table>';
Note that this is untested and may need some modification to work properly.