Personally we have a pretty table function that takes an array of array refs (as well as width and centre args). It does the alternate the colours thing (stylesheet based) and as it takes an array of array refs all you need to do is unshift a header into the return from fetchall_arrayref and there is your table. This lives in our UI.pm and using it is a single call $html = pretty_table( $ary_ref ) +/- unshifting headers. Benefits include a single simple call and stylsheeting so the theme remains consistent. Oh and the sum total code volume of our CGI parser, HTML::Template, UI.pm.... is still less than CGI.pm alone, and a lot faster (not that code volume or size make much difference to most users). Here is the code FWIW. 

sub pretty_table {
    my ($ary, $width, $no_center) = @_;
    my $header = $ary->[0];
    $width = $width ? qq!width="$width"! : '';
    my $html = qq!<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" $w
+idth>\n!;
    my $cols = scalar @$header;
    $html .= get_row( $header, $cols, 'header' );
    my $flip_flop = 1;
    for my $row_ref ( @$ary[1..$#{$ary}] ) {
        my $class = $flip_flop ? 'light' : 'dark';
        $html .= get_row( $row_ref, $cols, $class );
        $flip_flop ^= 1;
    }
    $html .= qq!<tr><td colspan="$cols" class="header">&nbsp;</td></tr
+>\n!;
    $html .= "</table>\n";
    $html = qq!<div align="center"><center>\n$html</center></div>\n! u
+nless $no_center;
  return $html
}

sub get_row {
    my ( $row_ref, $cols, $class ) = @_;
    my $html = qq!<tr>!;
    for my $td ( 0.. $cols-1 ) {
        my $data = defined $row_ref->[$td] ?  $row_ref->[$td] : '&nbsp
+;';
        $html .= qq!<td class="$class">$data</td>!;
    }
    $html .= "</tr>\n";
  return $html
}

[download]

cheers

tachyon

In reply to Re: CGI.pm HTML-Generation Methods Considered Useful by tachyon
in thread CGI.pm HTML-Generation Methods Considered Useful by friedo

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