hello again.
I have had to start from scratch as the code I was attempting to use was cluttered, mixed, and had many cominations of other scripts included that were not needed..
Here is my new code..

// phpBB stuff
define('IN_PHPBB', true);
$phpbb_root_path = './';
include($phpbb_root_path . 'extension.inc');
include($phpbb_root_path . 'common.' . $phpEx);
//
// Start session management
//
$userdata = session_pagestart($user_ip, PAGE_INDEX);
init_userprefs($userdata);
//
// End session management
//
 if ( !isset($HTTP_GET_VARS['action']) || $HTTP_GET_VARS['action'] == "list" ) 
 { 
    $template->set_filenames(array( 
    'body' => 'clans_list_body.tpl') 
    ); 
  include($phpbb_root_path . 'includes/page_header.' . $phpEx);
 }
 
    $this_title = $lang['clans_title_clans_list']; 
 
    $sql = "SELECT clan_id, clan_name, clan_leader, clan_members 
                FROM " . CLANS_TABLE . " 
                    WHERE clan_members = '1' 
                ORDER BY clan_name"; 
   if ( !($result = $db->sql_query($sql)) ) 
   { 
      message_die(GENERAL_ERROR, 'Error retrieving data', '', __LINE__, __FILE__, $sql); 
   } 
        return ( $row = $db->sql_fetchrow($result) );

As you can see this does nothing more than a db querry gathering the information I need...
What I need help with is the next line of code .. I want it to output to the tpl file a table:
<==Table header==>
Name / / Leader / / Members
clan_name / / clan_leader / / (no=None / yes=link to clan_member_list.php)
thank you and I hope this isnt asking too much.. (of course I will always be back for more ha ha ha

You need something along the lines of:

PHP Code:

$result = mysql_query($sql)
or die(mysql_error());
 
 
 
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
extract($row);
echo " Your table info & formatting \n";
 
} 


If you are dealing with template systems, you will need to either a) put ALL the HTML for the whole table into one massive string variable, and assign that to a template variable with something like

PHP Code:

$longstringwithallthehtmlinit = "<table><tr><td>Your table here</td></tr></table>";
$template->assign_vars(array(
    'WHOLE_TABLE' => $longstringwithallthehtmlinit
          )
);

$template->pparse('body'); 


and then display that by putting {WHOLE_TABLE} into the template file where you want the table to be.

Or b) you can go the slightly more complex but nicer route which is to build up the table row by row into the template:

PHP Code:

//Database query here

while ($row = $db->sql_fetchrow($result))  {
  if($row['members'] == "No") {
    $member_link = "None";
  }
  else {
    $member_link = "<a href=\"members.php?clan=".$row['clan_id']."\">Members</a>";
  }
  $template->assign_block_vars('tablerow', Array(
    'CLAN_NAME' => $row['clan_name'],
    'CLAN_LEADER' => $row['clan_leader'],
    'MEMBERS' => $member_link ) );
}

$template->pparse('body'); 


and then put this into the template like this:

<table><tr><th>Clan Name</th><th>Clan Leader</th><th>Members</th></tr>
<!-- BEGIN tablerow -->
<tr><td>{tablerow.CLAN_NAME}</td><td>{tablerow.CLAN_LEADER}</td><td>{tablerow.MEMBERS}</td></tr>
<!-- END tablerow -->
</table>

Please note that I've guessed at a lot of things and you will need to fill in the actual values, filenames and so that exist on your site instead of the ones I've filled in. Also note that all of this is based on my knowledge of the template system that phpBB uses (since it looks very similar), but your CMS may behave slightly differently.

Let us know how you get on with this and if you want further explanation (black variables in templates are tricky).