Question

I am dynamically creating a table on the client side and populating it with a list of peoples names.

sbData.Append("<table>");
    int iColumnCounter = 1;
    sbData.Append("<tr>");

    foreach (int _iPerId in lsiPeople)
    {
        if (iColumnCounter == 5)
        {
            iColumnCounter = 1;
            sbData.Append("</tr><tr>");
        }

        string sName = GetPersonName(_iPerId);
        DropDownList_Student.Items.Add(new ListItem(sName, _iPerId.ToString()));
        sbData.AppendFormat("<td><input class=\"studentCheckBox\" type=\"checkbox\" onClick=\"UpdateSelectedCounter()\" id={0} name=\"{1}\" value={0}>{1}</td>", _iPerId, sName);
        iColumnCounter++;
    }

    sbData.Append("</tr>");
    sbData.Append("</table>");

The names are already sorted in alphabetical order but it as you can see this will enter them in left to right jumping a column. When when it gets to 4 columns it will go to the next row.

I want it to go, top to bottom in a column, then to the next column so it will be like

______
|A|C|L|
|A|F|N|
|C|K|N|

Imagine these letters are the first letter of the persons second name.

Answer 1

If you want a 4×4 table, going down alphabetically then the index will be as follows:

*/
[0][4][8][12]
[1][5][9][13]
[2][6][10][14]
[3][7][11][15]
*/

So what you want to do is something like this:

 sbData.Append("<table>");
    int iColumnCounter = 0;
    sbData.Append("<tr>");

    for(int i = -4; i < lsiPeople.count; )
    {
        iColumnCounter++;
        i+=4;
        if(5 == iColumnCounter)
        {
            iColumnCounter = 1;
            i = i - 15;//we want the index to go back to start of next row
            sbData.Append("</tr><tr>");
        }
        string sName = GetPersonName(i);
        DropDownList_Student.Items.Add(new ListItem(sName, _iPerId.ToString()));
        sbData.AppendFormat("<td><input class=\"studentCheckBox\" type=\"checkbox\" onClick=\"UpdateSelectedCounter()\" id={0} name=\"{1}\" value={0}>{1}</td>", _iPerId, sName);
    }

    sbData.Append("</tr>");
    sbData.Append("</table>");