Question

I have come unstuck on a relatively (almost) trivial problem. I have a row of data that I want to display in tabular form (HTML). For some reason (possibly long day [again] behind the computer), I am not coming up with any elegant solutions (algorithms) to do this.

I have presented some sample data, and how such data would be displayed in the table. I would be grateful for some ideas on algos to implement this.

The output table has rows labelled with the various scores and the indices are displayed at the bottom.

I would like to be able to have a variable determine the number of columns to print, before a new table is printed underneath – to prevent ridiculously long tables.

so I want to write a function with the following signature (ignoring data types):

function create_table_html_from_rows(datarows, max_cols_per_table)

Here is the sample data and mock output table presentation

Row data:

index, Score, amount
1, level 1, 12.24
3, level 4, 14.61
9, level 10, 42.35
15, level 2, -8.12


Scores
======

Level 1  12.24   
Level 2                       -8.12
Level 3
Level 4         14.61
.....
Level 10               42.35
----------------------------------------
         |  1  |  3  |  9   |   15       <- Index

Pseudocode should be sufficient, however, if you snippet is in a programming language, it is perharps worth pointing out that I will be implementing my algorithm in Python, however any snippets in any of the following languages would be fine:

Python, C, C++, PHP, C#

Answer 1

I assumed you have Raw data stored similar to what I have below.
Also, the level is non-unique.

<?
    $rowData = array( 
        0=> array('index'=>1, 'Score'=>"level 1", 'amount'=>12.24), 
        1=> array('index'=>3, 'Score'=>"level 4", 'amount'=>14.61),
        2=> array('index'=>9, 'Score'=>"level 10", 'amount'=>42.35),
        3=> array('index'=>15, 'Score'=>"level 2", 'amount'=>-8.12),
        4=> array('index'=>12, 'Score'=>"level 10", 'amount'=>16.5)
        // example Raw Data with non-unique levels
    );
    $numOfScores = 15; // Predefined Score Level Max
    foreach($rowData as $c){
        $cols[] = $c['index']; //Create index row
        $score = str_replace("level ","",$c['Score']); // split the score so it is only numeric
        $levels[$score][] = $c; //create a 2-D array based on the level
    }
    echo "<table><tr><th colspan=".(sizeof($cols)+1).">Scores:</th></tr>";
    for($ii = 1; $ii < $numOfScores; $ii++){ // Go through the levels
        echo "<tr><td>Level ".$ii."</td>";
        for($i = 0; $i < sizeof($cols); $i++){
            echo "<td>";
            if(isset($levels[$ii])){ // If I have a level, let's print it in the right column
                foreach($levels[$ii] as $lvl)
                    if($cols[$i] == $lvl['index']) echo $lvl['amount'];
            }
            echo "</td>";
        }
        echo "<tr>";
    }
    echo "<td>Index:</td>";
    foreach($cols as $c){
        echo "<td>$c</td>";
    }
    echo "</table>";
    ?>

I get the following output:

Scores:
Level 1 12.24               
Level 2             -8.12   
Level 3                 
Level 4     14.61           
Level 5                 
Level 6                 
Level 7                 
Level 8                 
Level 9                 
Level 10        42.35       16.5
Level 11                    
Level 12                    
Level 13                    
Level 14                    
Index:  1   3   9   15  12

It is tabbed correctly on my screen, probably won’t appear to be.

As you can see, I added an extra row in your data to simulate a non-unique row. Should work!