Posted by leader on 04/09/07 11:44

On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 11:46:37 +0200, "J.O. Aho" <user@example.net>
wrote:

>leader@congress.hotmail.com wrote:
>> I'm trying to list meteorological data reports, from an ever-varying
>> number of locations, in two columns, side-by-side - the first half of
>> the list alphabetically in the left column and then the second half in
>> the right column. In the example below, numbering the locations for
>> the purpose of the example, it has to be something like this, using,
>> say, 60 locations -
>>
>> $Query="SELECT * FROM obervations order by location";
>> $Result=mysql_db_query ($DBName, $Query, $Link);
>> while ($Row=mysql_fetch_array ($Result))
>> (
>>
>> <table>
>> <tr>
>> <td>$Row[location1] $Row[humidity1] $Row[oktas1]</td>
>> <td>$Row[location31] $Row[humidity31] $Row[oktas31]</td>
>> </tr>
>> <tr>
>> <td>$Row[location2] $Row[humidity2] $Row[oktas2]</td>
>> <td>$Row[location32] $Row[humidity32] $Row[oktas32]</td>
>> </tr>
>> </table>
>>
>>
>> and so on until the database is exhausted.
>> I've tried using arrays to store each data item but I think it's
>> clumsy. Is there a more elegant way to do it?
>> TIA.
>
>There is quite a lot anti-table feelings at the html-newsgroups,
Yeah, I saw that; some of them get almost hysterical on the subject.
> so you may
>want to avoid as much as possible to use those, you could use Erwins model,
>but instead of an outer table you could use div-tags, one for the left table
>and another for the right table.
>
>Another method would be to store the data into an array and then split it in
>two (array_slice) and loop throe the arrays simultaneous.
>
>I do favor the second option.

I finally went the way of -
select location from table
$count=num_affected_rows
if ($count%2) $count++
$half_count=$count/2
then -
select aplhabetically limit 0, $half_count
and -
select alphabetically limit $half_count, $count
into a left table and a right table.
It all seems to work. Thanks for the suggestions.

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