lisaw has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi Guys, One last question for you Perl Guru's and I'll leave you boys alone...promise :) I'm trying to figure out how to diplay the entries in a database in, say, 4 table fields instead of them being displayed vertically one. So, here's an example of what I'm trying to accomplish: 
Entry 1       Entry2    Entry 3    Entry 4
Entry 5       Entry6    Etc.

Instead of...

Entry 1
Entry 2
Entry 3

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Here's what I get to work with... 
&parse_form;
$database='categories.dat';

if ($input{'database'} eq ''){
$db=$database;
}else{
$db=$input{'database'};
}

open (ORGDB,"<$database");
@ODB=<ORGDB>;
close (ORGDB);

shift @ODB;
@ODB = sort(@ODB); 

foreach $rec (@ODB){
    chomp($rec);
    ($Category)=split(/\|/,$rec);
print "<tr><td valign=top width=65>
               <B>Category: </B>$Category<BR></td></tr>\n";
}

sub parse_form {

   read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
   if (length($buffer) < 5) {
         $buffer = $ENV{QUERY_STRING};
    }
   @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
   foreach $pair (@pairs) {
      ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);

      $value =~ tr/+/ /;
      $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;

      $input{$name} = $value;
   }
}

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Thanks Again! Lisa

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re (tilly) 1: Database Layout
by tilly (Archbishop) on Jan 31, 2002 at 02:44 UTC
    This is what splice is for. 
    my @list = 1..30;
while (@list) {
  print join "\t", splice(@list, 0, 4);
  print "\n";
}

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[reply]
[d/l]
      This is something I've had on low priority for my own script recently. I did sort of what tilly did but in the messy C-style way with nested for loops. (forgive me please..it was just something to hold over until I got other things done) Problem is that not all entries are the same length, so tabbing doesn't ensure even columns.

      I was wondering whether the @<<<<< formatting placeholders might work for this? I skimmed Chapter7 of Programming Perl, but I confess I haven't studied it carefully yet.

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[d/l]
Re: Database Layout
by gav^ (Curate) on Jan 31, 2002 at 02:14 UTC

    Use CGI. Don't reinvent the wheel badly.

    Using something like MLDBM or a database or use something like DBI::RAM to handle a flatfile database better.

    Hope this helps...

    gav^

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Re: Database Layout
by screamingeagle (Curate) on Jan 31, 2002 at 02:36 UTC
    to display the fields horizontally (4 per row , in this case) instead of vertically, try something like this : 
    $cnt=1;
    print "<tr>\n";
    while (($cnt++ % 5) != 0) {
        print "   <td>test</td>\n";        
    }
    print "</tr>";

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[d/l]
Re: Database Layout
by Fletch (Bishop) on Jan 31, 2002 at 05:51 UTC

    There's an example in the Perl Cookbook on how to display items in a list a la ls. Check out words from chapter 4.

    Update: Not that that has anything to do with displaying them in the context of an HTML table. Pay no attention to me, I just need (more) sleep.

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