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PHP

Posted by jne
jne
12,613 Points

php: using for loop in function to display data from db

Hi! My program below is called using "echo get_all_books_info(); " in the index page. It displays the first row in the database but not the rest. It seems that there is something wrong with my for loop:

function get_all_books_info(){
require_once('connect.php');
$query = "SELECT * FROM book";
$result = mysql_query($query);

if(!$result) die("Oh crap...: " . mysql_error());

$rows = mysql_num_rows($result);

for ($j = 0 ; $j <= $rows; $j++)
{
    $return = "";   
    $row = mysql_fetch_row($result);
    $return = '<ul class="books">';
    $return = $return . "<li><h2>" . $row[1] . "</h2>" . " (". $row[5] .       ")" . "</li>";
    $return = $return . "<li>" . $row[2] . "</li>";
    $return = $return . "<li>" . $row[3] . "</li>";
    $return = $return . "<br/>";
    $return = $return . "<li>" . $row[4] . "</li>";
    $return = $return . "</ul>";
    return $return;
}

}

The program does return one row, but it seems that it never returns back to the loop so the $row variable can be set to the next row in the db by the php function mysql_fetch_row as this have a built in counter.

Can anyone help me with this please?

1 Answer

mikes02
mikes02
Courses Plus Student 16,968 Points

From the PHP Documentation:

"If called from within a function, the return statement immediately ends execution of the current function, and returns its argument as the value of the function call. "

PHP is not my strongest area but I think this may help:

function get_all_books_info() {

    require_once('connect.php');
    $query = "SELECT * FROM book";
    $result = mysql_query($query) or die("Oh crap...: " . mysql_error());

    while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        $return = '<ul class="books">';
        $return .= "<li><h2>" . $row[1] . "</h2>" . " (". $row[5] .")" . "</li>";
        $return .= "<li>" . $row[2] . "</li>";
        $return .= "<li>" . $row[3] . "</li>";
        $return .= "<br/>"; 
        $return .= "<li>" . $row[4] . "</li>";
        $return .= "</ul>";
        echo $return;
    }
}

Then to call the function just use

get_all_books_info();