Looping problem with whiles and ifs

a table with 3 td's in each row

[Trisha]

I'm trying to display records in a table, with 3 td's across before another tr begins. I've gotten as far as the code below. But this doesn't really work right, and I understand why - the same item gets repeated three times, in the same table row. I can't figure out how to fix it though.

while ($subcategory=mysql_fetch_array($subcategory_result)){
echo "<tr>";
for ($i=1; $i<=3; $i++){
echo "<td>html stuff here </td>";
}
echo "</tr>";
}

I tried putting the while within the 'for', but the table row also needs to be looped through so this won't work either.

I really appreciate the patience of the regulars here who help out people like me. I'm actually enjoying doing PHP/MySQL work, but I just don't seem to be very good at it!

And as pathetic as this sounds - I'm actually quite proud of myself for having figured out how to do the counter to create 3 table datas before another table row starts! I just can't get the data into it right now.

[jatar_k]

what about using a control structure to have it know which cell it is to output?

$cell = 1; 
while ($subcategory=mysql_fetch_array($subcategory_result)){ 
 if ($cell == 1) echo "<tr>"; 
 echo "<td>html stuff here </td>"; 
 if ($cell == 1) { 
 $cell = 2; 
 } else if ($cell == 2) { 
 $cell = 3; 
 } else { 
 $cell = 1; 
 echo "</tr>"; 
 } 
} 
//at this point we need to make sure the table is closed properly 
if ($cell == 2) { 
 echo "<td>&nbsp;</td></tr>"; 
} else if ($cell == 3) { 
 echo "<td>&nbsp;</td>"; 
 echo "<td>&nbsp;</td></tr>"; 
} 
echo "</table>"; 

[Trisha]

Thanks jatar_k - that worked! It took me a long time to understand how/why it works, but I think I get it now. I thought there would have been an easier way to do it though. I never would have been able to come up with something like this myself either!

[jatar_k]

most of it is to make sure the table gets closed properly. It needs to know how many more cells to output and whether or not to close the row.

I have one lying around somewhere that has a lot tighter code but I figured I would use the verbose one as it is easier to understand the steps.

glad it helped