Problem displaying linkable alphabet on page

[skinnybloke]

Hi

I am trying to do something with PHP and having problems - a bit of a
a PHP novice I'm afraid.

What I am trying to achieve is to display the alphabet and numbers 0-9
on a web page. I want the letters/numbers to be clickable to specific
web pages if there are companies on my database that start with that
letter. If they are not on the database I just wantthe letters
displayed but not clickable.

I'm ok on all of the seperate components but I cannot seem to fit it
all together

1. I do a select from a SQL database using this string to reduce the
company name to it's initial letter.

$query = 'SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(company_name,1) FROM members ORDER BY
company_name ASC';
2. I know I can use the following to get the numbers & letters
displayed.

for ($numbers = 0; $numbers <= 9; $numbers++) {

echo "<a href='members.php?coletter=$numbers'>$numbers </a>";
}

What I can't seem to work out is how to do a loop to do this check and
decide what to echo

After a few hours of trying various things from the manuals and web I
am now looking for some assistance.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Joachim Weiß]

skinnybloke schrieb:

Hi
I'm ok on all of the seperate components but I cannot seem to fit it
all together
1. I do a select from a SQL database using this string to reduce the
company name to it's initial letter.

$query = 'SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(company_name,1) FROM members ORDER BY
company_name ASC'; ok!

2. I know I can use the following to get the numbers & letters
displayed.

for ($numbers = 0; $numbers <= 9; $numbers++) { only numbers in this case
echo "<a href='members.php?coletter=$numbers'>$numbers </a>";
}

What I can't seem to work out is how to do a loop to do this check and
decide what to echo

// get the first element from your query
$row=mysql_fetch_row($result);
$match=$row?$row[0]:false;

for( .... ) { // loop through your chars
if ($row && $match==$number) { // we have a match
echo "<a href='members.php?coletter=$numbers'>$numbers </a>";
// make your output

//advance in the database
$row=mysql_fetch_row($result);
$match=$row?$row[0]:false;
}
}
hope it helps
however ther are much "cooler" solutions to achive this this goal
eg:
for( .... ) { // loop through your chars
// now check if there ar entries in your DB starting with that letter
$query="SELECT COUNT(*) FROM members WHERE company_name like ${letter}*";
//
$row=mysql_fetch_row($result);
if($row[0] > 0) {
echo ....
}
}

HIH
Jo

[Kimmo Laine]

"skinnybloke" <th**************@yahoo.co.uk> kirjoitti
viestissä:27********************************@4ax.c om...

Hi

I am trying to do something with PHP and having problems - a bit of a
a PHP novice I'm afraid.

What I am trying to achieve is to display the alphabet and numbers 0-9
on a web page. I want the letters/numbers to be clickable to specific
web pages if there are companies on my database that start with that
letter. If they are not on the database I just wantthe letters
displayed but not clickable.

I'm ok on all of the seperate components but I cannot seem to fit it
all together

1. I do a select from a SQL database using this string to reduce the
company name to it's initial letter.

$query = 'SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(company_name,1) FROM members ORDER BY
company_name ASC';
Now that you have a query result containing the letters and numbers, you can
put them in an array like so:
$result = mysql_query($query);
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) $alphanums[] = $row[0];

2. I know I can use the following to get the numbers & letters
displayed.

for ($numbers = 0; $numbers <= 9; $numbers++) { Now we just add a little condition that decides whether or not a link is
displayed
if(in_array($numbers, $alphanums)) // We check if it is in the array we
did earlier
echo "<a href='members.php?coletter=$numbers'>$numbers </a>";
else // If it wasn't -> just print a number without <a href>.
echo "$numbers"; }

That should do it.

-Kimmo

[ZeldorBlat]

So a "cooler" solution would be to hit the database once for each
letter/number that might be in there as opposed to hitting it just once
at the beginning?

[skinnybloke]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:25:49 +0300, "Kimmo Laine"
<et*******************@Mgmail.com> wrote:

Hi Kimmo - thanks for that - I spent hours trying to sort this out and
in the end you've shown me that it was the "While" loop that I had
screwed up.

One other small issue

I currently only have 3 records on the database and all start with an
alpha character yet the script is showing the numeric 0 as a linkable
field.

Is this another of those PHP anomolies? Any ideas on how I put this
right

[skinnybloke]

To anyone interested I corrected this by:
if ( in_array( strval( $numbers ), $alphanums ) )
On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 08:07:28 GMT, skinnybloke
<th**************@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:25:49 +0300, "Kimmo Laine"
<et*******************@Mgmail.com> wrote:

Hi Kimmo - thanks for that - I spent hours trying to sort this out and
in the end you've shown me that it was the "While" loop that I had
screwed up.

One other small issue

I currently only have 3 records on the database and all start with an
alpha character yet the script is showing the numeric 0 as a linkable
field.

Is this another of those PHP anomolies? Any ideas on how I put this
right