How to display MySQL data in a list - php

Question

I will be using data from a MySQL database and to receive that data I will be using this code:
SELECT link, notes FROM links WHERE useri_id=XXX;
I am now stuck on how to display this nicely in a list where it will be a link and then on next line the notes for that link and then a spacer line and then it will display the next link and notes and so on. How would I code this?

Answer 1

You can use something like this:
$rs = mysql_query("SELECT link, notes FROM links WHERE useri_id=XXX") or die(mysql_error());
echo "<ul>";
while( false !== ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($rs)))
{
echo "<li>";
echo "<a href='" . $row['link'] . "'>" . $row['link'] . "</a><br />";
echo $row['notes'] . "<hr />";
echo "</li>";
}
echo "</ul>";

Answer 2

Use this:
$query = "SELECT link, notes FROM links WHERE useri_id=XXX";
$result = mysqli_query(db_conn_link_var_name, $query);
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result, MYSQLI_ASSOC)) {
echo "<ul>";
echo "<li>{$row['link']}</li>";
echo "<li>{$row['notes']}</li>";
echo "</ul>";
}

Answer 3

Coding HTML right in PHP code is not a recommended way.
You should use some templating engine like PHP Smarty or whatever rocks nowadays.
Check e.g. http://devzone.zend.com/article/1238
However, for learning purposes, the other anwsers are just ok.

Answer 4

Ondra's answer is the most reliable one In my view , addition to his answer I suggest you to use PHP frameworks which will take care of many things for you and you can focus on design and code in an organized way.
If you can see all the codes given above are to hard to maintain because of spaghetti nature of PHP coding .
CakePHP and Symfony are really good, Zend needs more time to learn .
But still If you need this code just for a minor database connection use the codes given above.