Dear guys,

I need help in reading a text file and displaying the content in an html table with 2 columns.

mytextfile.txt
value1
value2
value3
value4
value5

I've found this code but it's for mySQL use.

<?php
/**
* If the count is odd, then add an extra
* row to the first column, otherwise, keep
* the rows the same.
*/
$count = mysql_num_rows($result);
if (($count % 2) & 1) {
$c1 = (int) ($count / 2 + 1);
} else {
$c1 = $count / 2;
}
/**
* I'm using two loops here because it is slightly faster
* than forcing the an if..else construct for every iteration.
*/
$str1 = '';
$str2 = '';
for($i = 0; $i < $c1; $i++) {
$row = mysql_fetch_arry($result)
$str1 .= '<li>' . $row['columnName'] . '</li>';
}
for($j = $c1; $j < $count; $j++) { // Use the $c1 as the base num
$row = mysql_fetch_arry($result)
$str2 .= '<li>' . $row['columnName'] . '</li>';
}

print <<<BLOCK
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><ul>$str1</ul></td>
<td valign="top"><ul>$str2</ul></td>
</tr>
</table>
BLOCK;
?>

Appreciate if you can please help, thanks.

First you need to read your file:

PHP Code:

$file = 'pathToYourFile.txt';
$fileHandle = fopen($file, 'r');

$data = fread($fileHandle, 4096); 


$data now contains all of the data in your file. To get each element, and assuming each element is line seperated you must parse the file contents into an array like this:

PHP Code:

$dataArray = explode($data, "\r\n"); 


Then with a loop you can output each element:

PHP Code:

$format = '<tr>
                 <td>%s</td>
                 <td>%s</td>
               </tr>';

$first = NULL;
$second = NULL;

echo '<table>';

foreach($dataArray as $s)
{

     if($first == NULL)
           $first = $s;
     else
     {
           $second = $s;
           printf($format, $first, $second);
           $first = NULL;
           $second = NULL;
     }
}

if($second == NULL && $first != NULL)
{
     printf($format, $first, '');
}

echo '</table>'; 


Not tested, not as clean as I'd like, but it should do the trick.

hi,

thanks for the responce.

i've tried the code, but i get a blank page.
i point it to the right file 'file.txt' (php and txt are in the same dir).

please help, thanks.

I fixed it.. I had the parameters for explode switched around (which is what happens when your brain is fried from writing java code all day). Also I replaced fopen and fread with file_get_contents because it is more efficient when you only need to read a file:

PHP Code:

<?php
$file = 'pathToYourFile.txt';
$data = file_get_contents($file);
$dataArray = explode("\n", $data);
$format = '<tr> 
                 <td>%s</td> 
                 <td>%s</td> 
               </tr>'; 

$first = NULL; 
$second = NULL; 

echo '<table>';

foreach($dataArray as $s) 
{ 

     if($first == NULL) 
           $first = $s; 
     else 
     { 
           $second = $s; 
           printf($format, $first, $second); 
           $first = NULL; 
           $second = NULL; 
     } 
} 

if($second == NULL && $first != NULL) 
{ 
     printf($format, $first, ''); 
} 

echo '</table>'; 

?>

It should work without any problems this time. I tested it myself.

Edit: Didn't mean to double post I thought I had hit the edit button for some reason. This is also what happens when your brain is fried from writing java code all day.

Hey, thank you very much!
it works!
really appreciate your help, thanks again