Question

I have a simple navigation php script which works ok.
The only problem is that I need to find a way to display the pagination links on top of the page instead of the bottom.
So for me a newb, it seems impossible since I have to show the pagination links before the actual navigation variables are being declared.

Can this be done?

Here is the script:

<?
$numrows = '600';
$rowsperpage = 20;
$totalpages = ceil($numrows / $rowsperpage); 
if ($currentpage > $totalpages){ $currentpage = $totalpages; } 
if ($currentpage < 1){ $currentpage = 1; } 
$offset = ($currentpage - 1) * $rowsperpage; 

HERE I query the data from the table and basically fill in the page.

Now starts the pagination links:

$range = 3;
if ($currentpage > 1) {  
    echo '<a href="'.$site_current.'/'.$slug.'/">First</a>'; 
}
$prevpage = $currentpage - 1;   

echo '<a href="'.$site_current.'/'.$slug.'/'.$prevpage.'/">Previous</a>';

for ($x = ($currentpage - $range); $x < (($currentpage + $range) + 1); $x++) {   
    if (($x > 0) && ($x <= $totalpages)) {      
        if($x == $currentpage){ 
            echo '<span class="current">'.$x.'</span>'; 
        } else { 

            echo '<a href="'.$site_current.'/'.$slug.'/'.$x.'/">'.$x.'</a>';

        } 
    } 
}

if ($currentpage != $totalpages){  
    $nextpage = $currentpage + 1;    
    echo '<a href="'.$site_current.'/'.$slug.'/'.$nextpage.'/">Next</a>';   
    echo '<a href="'.$site_current.'/'.$slug.'/'.$totalpages.'/">Last</a>'; 
}
?>

Answer 1

When I do anything in PHP I do the following

<?php
    //Calculate anything I need for the page to be displayed

    //Build the html page and fill in variables where needed
?>

You may also want to look into frameworks like smarty that separate the logic from the template designs. PHP is really a templating language in itself but I actually quite like using smarty.