How to fill in placeholder boxes with a foreach loop? - php

Question

Using PHP (at if it's need, jquery):
I have this page with 30 boxes. It will never be more, or less.
On those 30 boxes, some of them will be filled with "box specific" data.
How can I say:
If there are 20 records on the foreach to loop trought, then, 20 boxes will contain data, and the rest will stay with the placeholders.
If there are 10 records on the foreach, then 20 boxes will stay with the placeholdes.
How can something like this be achieved ?
Can anyone provide me a good example for doing so?
Thanks a lot,
MEM

Answer 1

Assuming $data is a numerically keyed array of your data:
<?php for($i = 0; $i < 30; $i++): ?>
<?php if(isset($data[$i]): ?>
<!-- the html for a box WITH data -->
<?php else: ?>
<!-- html for an empty placeholder box -->
<?php endif; ?>
<?php endfor;?>

Answer 2

Fill an array with the bits of data you do have, add 30 placeholders, take the first 30 elements of the array, and iterate over those.

Answer 3

Do you have names for each box? Assuming there is some name/id in your 10 or 20 records which I'm assuming are in an array...
function OutputBoxes($records, $boxes){
foreach($boxes as $box){
$box->PopulateWithPlaceHolder();
}
foreach($records as $record){
$box = GetMatchingBox($record);
$box->SetValue($record['valueProperty']);
}
foreach($boxes as $box){
echo $box->ElementHtml();
}
}
Assuming here that you have some type of box object which knows how to output itself as HTML, and set whatever value you would like that is coming from the record.

Answer 4

make an array with all your data. then run a for-loop (0..30) to build your boxes. For each item in your loop, if your box-data array contains an element, then output specific data, otherwise output placeholder data. Something like this...
<?php
$box_data = array(
"data for box 1",
"data for box 2",
"data for box 3"
);
for( $i=0; $i<30; ++$i ) {
if( $i >= count($box_data) ) {
// output "placeholder box"
echo "<div class=\"box placeholder\">Placeholder Box</div>";
} else {
// output the box's specific data
echo "<div class=\"box non-placeholder\">{$box_data[$i]}</div>";
}
}