Echo data to specific column in table - php

Question

I am using a for loop to generate a table for a SQL query's results. I am trying to alter the code so that new text is echoed into a specific column of the table (column 8)
$fields_num = mysql_num_fields($result);
echo "<h1>Table: {$table}</h1>";
echo "<table border='0' id=resultTable><tr>";
for($i=0; $i<$fields_num; $i++)
{
$field = mysql_fetch_field($result);
echo "<td id" . $i;
echo "></td>";
}
echo "</tr>\n";
// printing table rows
while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result))
{
echo "<tr>";
// $row is array... foreach( .. ) puts every element
// of $row to $cell variable
foreach($row as $cell)
echo "<td>$cell</td>";
echo "</tr>\n";
}
mysql_free_result($result);
?>

Answer 1

what actually do you mean by "new text" in "I am trying to alter the code so that new text is echoed into a specific column of the table"?
Is "text" the name of a particular table field? If so, it would be better to alter the sequence of the fields in the mysql_query that you are using instead of doing any change in the html generation for this
e.g.
SELECT field1, field2, ... new_text from ...
Put new_text in the eighth position.
Update
If you want to display various things for various columns in the result table, you can put a counter and do what you want as per count like this:-
// printing table rows
while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result))
{
echo "<tr>";
// $row is array... foreach( .. ) puts every element
// of $row to $cell variable
$counter = 0;
foreach($row as $cell)
{
if($counter == 7)
{//eighth column
echo "<td><img src='".$cell."' /></td>";
}
else if($counter == 5)
{//sixth col
echo //something else ...
}
else
echo "<td>$cell</td>";
//inside your default td
$counter++;
}
echo "</tr>\n";
}
But it would be more readable,maintainable and customizable to have some config array where you specify which column is going to hold what like this:-
function getColumnConfigs()
{
return $columnsConfigs = array(5=> "something_else", 7 => "img");
//specify special cases for necessary columns. columns not mentioned here will take default.
}
and then use this in your iteration:-
// printing table rows
$columnsConfig = getColumnConfigs();
while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result))
{
echo "<tr>";
// $row is array... foreach( .. ) puts every element
// of $row to $cell variable
$counter = 0;
foreach($row as $cell)
{
if(isset($columnsConfig[$counter]))
{
switch($columnsConfig[$counter])
{
case "img":
$html = "<td><img src='".$cell."' /></td>";
break;
case "something_else"
$html = "<td><img src='".$cell."' /></td>";
break;
}
}
else
{//default
$html = echo "<td>$cell</td>";
}
}
echo "</tr>\n";
}