1. PHP: Output Formatting
FdSc Module 109
Server side scripting and
Database design
2011

2. basicSelection.php This script did not format the data very well
We should use tables to display data
Table tags
<table> </table>
<tr> </tr> a row
<td> </td> a data cell
We can also use print to output HTML

3. print print("<table width='500' border='1'>");
This command will create a table with a width of 500 pixels and a border
Make this the first command in the modified basicSelection.php
(after the if ($connectionSuccess == 1) { )

4. Be more selective
Use SQL to retrieve the title and author $result = mysql_query("SELECT title, author FROM books"); while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

5. Assign variables
Assign the results of the query to variables $Title = $row['title']; $Author = $row['author'];

6. Print the results in table cells
print("<tr>"); print("<td>$Title </td><td> $Author</td>"); print("</tr>");

7. Complete code
if ($connectionSuccess == 1) { print("<table width='500' border='1'>"); $result = mysql_query("SELECT title, author FROM books"); while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { $Title = $row['title']; $Author = $row['author']; print("<tr>"); print("<td>$Title </td><td> $Author</td>"); print("</tr>"); } mysql_free_results($result); //free up server memory

8. Appearance