Different coloured rows

[davidcriniti]

...I'm Australian, hence the 'u' in coloured, in case you're wondering! 

 

Basically I'd like to create a table of results for a running race that has rows shaded pink if the participant is female.

 

I think my problem is something to do with not declaring 'sex' as a variable, but I'm not really sure how to do this. My code is below. Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

<?php
$dbcnx = @mysql_connect('localhost', 'MYUSERNAME', 'MYPASSWORD);
if (!$dbcnx) {
  exit('<p>Unable to connect to the ' .
      'database server at this time.</p>');
}

if (!@mysql_select_db('coast2ko_test')) {
  exit('<p>Unable to locate the results ' .
      'database at this time.</p>');
}

$sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM result_single ORDER BY place ASC");

echo "<table border='1' CELLPADDING=5 STYLE='font-size:13px'>";
echo "<tr> <td><H3>First name</h3></td> <td><H3>Lastname</H3></td>  <td><H3>Sex</H3></td>  <td><H3>Time</H3></td><td><H3>Place</H3></td></tr>";
// keeps getting the next row until there are no more to get
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {



// Print out the contents of each row into a table



  if ($sex=="F")
echo "<tr bgcolor='#FF99FF'>";
  else
echo "<tr>";

echo "<tr bgcolor='#FF99FF'>";
echo "<td>";
echo $row['firstname'];
echo "</td><td>";
echo $row['lastname'];
echo "</td><td>";
echo $row['sex'];
echo "</td><td>";
echo $row['time'];
echo "</td><td>";
echo $row['place'];
echo "</td></tr>";


}
echo "</table>";



?>

[JasonLewis]

Look at your code above. There's an error.. and it's right at the top.  Fix that, then use $row['sex'] instead of $sex.

[davidcriniti]

Thanks ProjectFear,

 

I got it working.

 

I notice I'd also thrown in another " echo "<tr bgcolor='#FF99FF'>";  " after the if / else statement which made things a bit more difficult, but I got there in the end.

 

Just out of interest, was the error you were referring to at the top of my code the missing " ' " after the word PASSWORD, or is there something else?

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

[JasonLewis]

Yeah, it was. But I guess you could have accidentally deleted that single quote when removing your password.

 

What was wrong with your script?

[davidcriniti]

There's nothing wrong with it anymore I'm pleased to say!  Thanks again for your help.

 

All in all it was 3 things:

- The " ' " after PASSWORD - and yep, that was just inadvertently deleted as I deleted the password.

- Using  $sex until you advised me to change it to $row['sex'].

 

- Under the if / else statement, I"d also had (for some reason unbeknownst to myself!)  " echo "<tr bgcolor='#FF99FF'>"; " which I didn't notice until a bit later. That caused all cells to have a pink background, regardless of the sex of the athlete. Goes to show you can't take you're eye off the ball for a second!

 

Thanks again,

 

Dave

[Psycho]

I would offer two slight modifications that would make the code a little more elegant. Each has different benefits

 

1. Use the ternary operator. This is straitforward and can be easily implemented in your existing code. Example

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql))
{
    // Print out the contents of each row into a table
    $bgColor = ($row['sex']=="F") ? '#FF99FF' : '#FFFFFF';
    echo "<tr bgcolor=\"{$bgColor}\">\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['firstname']}</td>\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['lastname']}</td>\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['sex']}</td>\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['time']}</td>\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['place']}</td>\n";
    echo "</tr>\n";
}
echo "</table>";

 

2. Set the colors in an array. This allows you to set the colors at the top of the script, or even in a config file, so you can change the colors without modifying the logic code. Example:

$bgColors = array('F'=>'#FF99FF', 'M'=>'#FFFFFF');

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql))
{
    // Print out the contents of each row into a table
    echo "<tr bgcolor=\"{$bgColors[$row['sex']]}\">\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['firstname']}</td>\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['lastname']}</td>\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['sex']}</td>\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['time']}</td>\n";
    echo "<td>{$row['place']}</td>\n";
    echo "</tr>\n";
}
echo "</table>";

[davidcriniti]

Thanks for your time mjdamato,

 

That worked perfectly!

 

Cheers,

 

Dave