Creating a table in HTML to display the result of a query in MySQL

Question

I want to create a PHP page to display the results of a query in a MySQL database under the format of a table. By spending quite some time on different forums, I ended with something that is somehow satisfying me but that is strongly affecting the design and the layout of my webpage. Due to the fact that I wrote the code by a test-fail strategy, it is far from being straightforward and I am sure it is possible to shorten and simplify it and, therefore, make it more compatible with the format of my webpage. Could anybody have a look at it and give some suggestions of general interest about how to solve this kind of issues?

  <div id="main">
  <?php
  require_once('../mysqli_connect.php');
  $response = $db->query("SELECT * FROM metabolite");
  echo '<table align="center" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" border = "1">
  <tr><td align="center"><b>Metabolites</b></td>
  <td align="center"><b>KEGG Id</b></td>
  <td align="center"><b>Synonyms</b></td></tr>';
  while ($data = $response->fetch())
  {
  ?>
  <tr><td align="left">
  <?php echo $data['Metabolite_name']; ?></td>
  <td align="left">
  KEGG: <?php echo $data['Synonyms']; ?></td>
  <td align="left">
  <?php echo $data['Synonyms']; ?></td>
  </tr>
  <?php
  }
  $response->closeCursor();
  ?>
  </div>

I thank you in advance for all your effort and your help.

Tom.

Answer 1

There's no way we can improve the design and layout of your webpage with the code you've given us. What I can do is write 'better' readable code.

<?php

function tableCell($content)
{
  echo '<td align="left">'.$content.'</td>';
}

// database access 
require_once('../mysqli_connect.php');
// get all records from the metabolite table
$response = $db->query("SELECT * FROM metabolite");
// start main division
echo '<div id="main">';
// start the table
echo '<table align="center" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" border = "1">';
// walk through all the metabolite records
while ($data = $response->fetch()) 
{
  // start a row
  echo '<tr>';
    // create the cells
    tableCell($data['Metabolite_name']);
    tableCell('KEGG: '.$data['Synonyms']);
    tableCell($data['Synonyms']);
  // finish a row
  echo '</tr>';
}
// close the table
echo '</table>';
// close main division
echo '</div>';
// close query
$response->closeCursor();

But this is not worth much, the output should remain the same.

Answer 2

if ($response->num_rows > 0) {
    while($data = $response->fetch_assoc()) {
    echo "<tr><td>" . $data["Metabolite_name"]. "</td></tr>" . ;
        }
    }
else {
    echo "0 results";
    }