how to display math equation

[YigalB]

In order to display an equation of parabola, I copied from somewhere

	<span style="font-size: 200%"><span class="math"><b><var>y</var>  
= <var><?php echo "$a" ?></var><var>x</var><sup>2</sup> <?php echo "$sb"?> 
<var><?php echo "$b" ?></var><var>x</var> <?php echo "$sc"?> 
<var><?php echo "$c" ?></var></b></span></span> 
</p> 
<br> 

 

It doesn't look nice, and also it doesn't know how to eliminate parts when the parameter is zero.

For example, in the case of y=ax^2+bx+c, and a=1 b=0 c=5, it would print y=1x^2+0x+5, instead of y=x^2+5

I could do pre-processing and solve it, but I was wondering if there is a nicer way to do that?

[kicken]

There's not any way to have either php or the browser just automatically hide any part that would be zero, you have to manually figure out what does and does not need to be shown.

 

As for making it look better you could look into using MathML

 

[Andy-H]

$args[] = ($a  ? '<var>'. $a .'</var>' : '');
$args[] = ($sb ? $sb                   : '');
$args[] = ($b  ? '<var>'. $b .'</var>' : '');
$args[] = ($sc ? $sc                   : '');
$args[] = ($c  ? '<var>'. $c .'</var>' : '');
$math = vsprintf('<span style="font-size: 200%"><span class="math"><b><var>y</var> = %s<var>x</var><sup>2</sup> %s %s <var>x</var> %s %s </b></span></span></p><br >', $args);