Question

I need to print an array with menu items in 4 columns, sorted vertically, and filled out like this:

Here’s the markup structure to follow (5 items).

<ul>
    <li>1</li>
    <li>2</li>
</ul>
<ul>
    <li>3</li>
</ul>
<ul>
    <li>4</li>
</ul>
<ul>
    <li>5</li>
</ul>

I’ve beeing trying something like this, but that doesnt work because it doesnt fill out the rows first, as the above example demonstrates:

$cols = 4;
$cnt = count($items);

echo "<ul>";
foreach($items as $i => $item) {
     echo "<li>" . $item->ID . "</li>";
    if(($i + 1)%$cols == 0 && ($i + 1) != $cnt) {
        echo "</ul>\n<ul>";
    }
}
echo "</ul>";

Any help on this is appreciated!

Answer 1

Something like this should do the trick for what you want to do. Simply input a data array and the number of columns desired, and it will separate that array into the specified number of columns

<?php
    $items = array(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17);
    $numCols = 4;
    $result = ListArrayVals($items,$numCols);
    echo $result;
    function ListArrayVals($items,$numCols) {
        $minPerRow = floor(count($items)/$numCols);
        $remaining = count($items) % $numCols;
        $colCount = array();
        for ($i = 0;$i<$numCols;$i++) {
            if ($i < $remaining) {
                array_push($colCount,$minPerRow+1);
            } else {
                array_push($colCount,$minPerRow);
            }
        }
        $listString = '';
        $count = 0;
        for ($i = 0;$i<count($colCount);$i++) {
            $listString = $listString . "<ul>";
            for ($j = 0;$j<$colCount[$i];$j++) {
                $listString = $listString . '<li>' . $items[$count] . '</li>';
                $count = $count + 1;
            }
            $listString = $listString . '</ul>';
        }
        return $listString;
    }
?>

Just simply change the echo statements to wrap whatever HTML tags or whatever you want around it.

EDIT I fixed it. It now will work for any number of columns and input data. I have also made it into a function so it can be re-used many times.