String comparison mysql, php
Is there a way to compare rows from two different tables in php? For example:
Clothing Item Price tag
Scarf £5
Scarf £6
Scarf £4
Cloth £10
Shoe £15
Basically I want to group different elements by their names. For every other element, I want to alternate two colors. So if this item is a scarf, I will dye it maybe blue, because the next item is also a scarf, I will also dye it blue. After that, since I have a rag, it will be colored yellow, but because the next one is a boot, it will be colored blue. I came up with something using php:
$previous = "";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
if ( $row['firstName'] != $previous) {
echo "<tr bgcolor = 'blue'>";
}
else {
echo "<tr bgcolor = 'yellow'>";
}
blah blah
}
When I do this, I don't get what I want. What I get from this is the first scarf is yellow and the other two are blue. Then, because the scarf! = Cloth, I get yellow, and also because the cloth! = Shoes, I become yellow, not blue.
I can see right away what the problem is, but I don't know how to fix it. Please help. Thanks to
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Track the current color as a separate variable starting outside the loop, then change it when the element name changes:
$color = true;
$previous = '';
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
if ( $row['firstName'] != $previous) {
$color = !$color;
$previous = $row['firstName'];
}
echo "<tr bgcolor = '", ($color?'blue':'yellow'),"'>";
blah blah
}
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