Creating New Table Row After Third Iteration in ForEach Loop PHP

Question

I have made a guestbook form which submits data to a .txt file using fwrite(). Then in a separate .php file I open the .txt file, explode the data, and then use a foreach loop to display the items in a table.

That's where my problem lies, I have managed to make all of my data items appear in new rows all held in the first column of my (3 X Infinite due to it being built by users signing the guestbook) table.

I know there is the for() and if() method using counters and the modulus - but I can't get their placement right. Either I accidentally cause nothing to display in my table or all of it in a single row, all of it in a single cell. I've found lots of examples of how to do this with a declared array but I can't figure out how to apply that in a dynamic sense.

My code:

    <?php echo "<h3><center><u>Review What You've Posted</u></center></h3>";
    ?>

    <?php
        $firstName = $_POST['firstName'];

        echo "<u>Your Name:</u> " .$firstName. "<br><br>";

        $yourEmail = $_POST['yourEmail'];

        echo "<u>Your Email:</u> " .$yourEmail. "<br><br>";

        $yourComments = $_POST['yourComments'];

        echo "<u>What You Thought:</u> " .$yourComments. "<br>";

        "<br>";


        $guestBook = fopen('guestBookData.txt', 'a+');

        $outputstring = $firstName . ':' . $yourEmail . ':' . $yourComments 
    . ':' . "\r";


        fwrite($guestBook,$outputstring);
        fclose($guestBook)

    ?>
    </main>

This is called by:

    <main class="Main Body BG" id="wrapper">

    <table style="width:100%" border="3" cellpadding="3">
    <caption>Previous Visitors</caption>
    <br>
    <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#FBB2EA" align="center"> Name </td>
    <td bgcolor="#FBB2EA" align="center"> Email </td>
    <td bgcolor="#FBB2EA" align="center"> Comments </td>
    </tr>

    <?php 

    $guestBook = fopen('guestBookData.txt', 'r'); 

    if($guestBook){
        while(($dataString=fgets($guestBook)) !==false){

            $dataField = explode(':', $dataString);

            foreach($dataField as $df){

                echo "<tr><td>".$df."</td></tr>";

                }   

    }

    fclose($guestBook); 

    }

    ?>

    </table>

    </main>

Answer 1

A couple of things I'd suggest. Don't use plain fwrite for that. You're implicitly assuming that : can't be part of your input which is not a reasonable assumption to make. Use the following:

 $guestBook = fopen('guestBookData.txt', 'a+');
 $outputarray = [ $firstName, $yourEmail, $yourComments ];
 fputcsv($guestBook,$outputarray,$delimiter); 

Second thing is you're making a row for each field, you should do this:

 <main class="Main Body BG" id="wrapper">

<table style="width:100%" border="3" cellpadding="3">
<caption>Previous Visitors</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th bgcolor="#FBB2EA" align="center"> Name </td>
<th bgcolor="#FBB2EA" align="center"> Email </td>
<th bgcolor="#FBB2EA" align="center"> Comments </td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<?php 

$guestBook = fopen('guestBookData.txt', 'r'); 

if($guestBook){
    while(($dataField=fgetcsv($guestBook,0,":")) !==false){ //CSV style reading here too
      echo "<tr>"; //Open row
      foreach($dataField as $df){
          echo "<td>".$df."</td>";
      }   
     echo "</tr>"; //Close row
}

fclose($guestBook); 

?>
</tbody>
</table>

</main>

You can read more on fputcsv and fgetcsv

**Added some table semantics as well like thead and tbody as well. Those are not required but are nice to have.