Question

I have six columns of output. The content is grabbed from an array (created as a php array and then sent as a js array). An sample line of that comprises the array $set is as follows:

 $set[] = array('q'=>'墨水','qurl'=>'001','a1'=>'o','a2'=>'ui','f'=>'m','m'=>'4sh','e'=>'3');

Lets say I have four rows of content. My code currently generates this:

Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 Col 4 Col 5 Col 6
Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 Col 4 Col 5 Col 6
Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 Col 4 Col 5 Col 6
Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 Col 4 Col 5 Col 6

I need to put these four rows into two primary sets of columns. So like this:

Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 Col 4 Col 5 Col 6        Col 7 Col 8 Col 9 Col 10 Col 11 Col 12
Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 Col 4 Col 5 Col 6        Col 7 Col 8 Col 9 Col 10 Col 11 Col 12

What is an efficient way of doing this? My current code looks like this:

…
$js_array = json_encode($set);
…


<table>
    <?php $counter = 0;
    while ($counter < 20) :
    $item = $set[$counter]?>
        <tr class="q<?php echo $counter; ?>">                   
            <form>
            <td><h5><?php echo $counter+1; ?></h5></td>
            <td><a class="question" href="javascript:soundManager.play('<?php echo $item['qurl'] ?>','audio/part2/type3/type3_<?php echo $item['qurl'] ?>.mp3');"><?php echo $item['q'] ?></a></td>
            <td><?php echo $item['f'] ?></td>
            <td><input class="a1" type="text" name="a1" maxlength="4" size="2" /></td>
            <td><?php echo $item['m'] ?>&nbsp;<input class="a2" type="text" name="a2" maxlength="4" size="2" /><?php echo $item['e'] ?></td>
            <td><input class="submit submit-<?php echo $counter; ?>" type="submit" value="Submit" /></td></form>
        </tr>
    <?php $counter++; ?>
    <?php endwhile; ?>
</table>

Answer 1

You can do it as follows:

$total = 24;

//loop through rows     
for($i = 0; $i < $total; $i++) {
    //start new table?
    if($i == 0 || $i == ($total/2)) {
        if($i > 0) { //second table cell values
            echo '</table>';
            $j_val = 7;
            $j = $j_val;
        } else { //first table cell values
            $j_val = 1;
            $j = $j_val;
        }

        echo '<table>';
    }

    echo '<tr>';

    $total_cells = ($j + 6);

    for(; $j < $total_cells; $j++) {
        echo '<td>' . $j . '</td>';
    }

    //reset j to default
    $j = $j_val;

    echo '</tr>';
}

echo '</table>';