Is there a better or more efficient way to do this?

Question

This code is working for what I need it to do, but (in my opinion) it looks bad so I am hoping someone knows of a cleaner or more efficient way to do the same thing. I have several entries being pulled from the database and I want them to be styled identically. Only the logo and the the link name will change eventually I will add a description. Here is the code:

<div class="content">

    <?PHP
        while($row = $stmt->fetch())
        {
            $name = $row['name'];
            $id = $row['id'];
            $logo = $row['logo'];
            $username = $row['username'];
            echo "<div class=" . "Links" . ">";

            echo "<div class=" . "linkImages" . ">";                        
            echo "<br>" . "<a href=" . "Profile.php?id=".$id . ">" . "<img src=" . "users/" . $username . "/images/" . $logo . " " . "width=" . "200" . " " . "height=" . "auto" . " " . "border=" . "0" . "/>" . "</a>";
            echo  "</div>";

            echo "<div class=" . "linkName" . ">";
            echo "<a href=" ."Profile.php?id=".$id .">" . $name ."</a>";
            echo "</div>";

            echo "</div>";

        }
    ?>

</div>

Answer 1

You can trivially remove most of the echoes and string concatenation by switching to a HEREDOC :

while($row = $stmt->fetch()) {
   echo <<<EOL
<div class="links">
yadayada
<br><a href="Profile.php?id={$row['id']}"><img src="users/{$row['username']}" etc....
yada yada yada
EOL;

Note that the lack of escapes in there, allowing for proper quotes around the tag attributes, and the {} notation on the embedded variables.

Answer 2

Don't use extra variable names. Instead, use the original.

Also, don't output every row with PHP. Use plain HTML and add the variable in it later:

<div class="Links">
<a href="Profile.php?id="<?=$row['id']?>"><?=$row['name']?></a>

Or just echo as 1 line, no need for concatenation

echo "<div class=\"linkImages\">";                        

or

echo '<div class="linkImages">';                        

Answer 3

echo '<div class="content">';

while($row = $stmt->fetch()){
    $name = $row['name'];
    $id = $row['id'];
    $logo = $row['logo'];
    $username = $row['username'];
    echo '<div class="Links">
            <div class="linkImages">
                <br><a href="Profile.php?id='.$id .'"><img src="users/'.$username.'/images/'. $logo .'" width="200" height="auto" border="0"></a>
            </div>
            <div class="linkName">
                <a href=Profile.php?id='.$id .'">'.$name.'</a>
            </div>
        </div>';
}

echo '</div>';

Answer 4

Here's how I would write it:

<div class="content">
    <?php
    while ($row = $stmt->fetch()){
        echo '<div class="Links">';
        echo '<div class="linkImages">';
        echo '<br /><a href="Profile.php?id='. $row['id'] .'"><img src="users/'. $row['username'] .'/images/'. $row['logo'] .'" width="200" /></a>';
        echo '</div>';
        echo '<div class="linkName">';
        echo '<a href="Profile.php?id='. $row['id'] .'">'. $row['name'] .'</a>';
        echo '</div>';
    }
    ?>
</div>

Note that I removed the border="0" for the img tag - that should be done with CSS.

Answer 5

The short answer is yes. There is almost always a cleaner or more efficient way to do it.

How about something like this?

        <div class="content">

        <?PHP while($row = $stmt->fetch()) { ?>

            <div class="Links">
                <div class="linkImages">
                    <br><a href="Profile.php?id="<?=$row['id'] ?>"><img src="users/<?=$row['username'] ?>/images/<?=$row['logo'] ?> width="200" height="auto" border="0" /></a>
                </div>
                <div class="linkName">
                <a href="Profile.php?id="<?=$row['id'] ?>><?=$row['name'] ?></a>
                </div>
            </div>

        <?PHP } ?>

    </div>

Answer 6

There are a lot of erroneous symbols etc in this, it comes with practice, but something like this might be worth trying

<?php
while($row = $stmt->fetch()) {
  $string = "";

  $string .= "<div class=\"Links\">\n";
  $string .= "<div class=\"linkImages\">\n";                        
  $string .= "<br />\n";
  $string .= "<a href=\"Profile.php?id=\"".$row['id'] . "><img src=\"users/". $row['name'] ."/images/" . $row['logo'] . "\" width=\"200\" height=\"auto\" border=\"0\" /></a>\n";
  $string .= "</div>\n";

  $string .= "<div class=\"linkName\">\n";
  $string .= "<a href=\"Profile.php?id=". $row['id'] .">". $row['name'] ."</a>\n";
  $string .= "</div>\n";
  $string .= "</div>\n";

  echo $string;
}
?>

Answer 7

I'd recommend learning how to use the printf() family of functions.

$frame = '<a href="Profile.php?id=%s"><img src="users/%s/images/%s" width="200" height="auto" border="0"/></a>';
printf($frame, $id, $username, $logo);