How to Display MySQL Table Data

Very often you will need to use a MySQL table to store data inside it and then output that data by using a PHP script. To display the table data it is best to use HTML, which upon filling in some data on the page invokes a PHP script which will update the MySQL table.

To populate a new database table with data you will first need an HTML page which will collect that data from the user. The following HTML code that and passes the information to a PHP script:

<form action="insert.php" method="post">
    Value1: <input type="text" name = "field1" /><br/>
    Value2: <input type="text" name = "field2" /><br/>
    Value3: <input type="text" name = "field3" /><br/>
    Value4: <input type="text" name = "field4" /><br/>
    Value5: <input type="text" name = "field5" /><br/>
    <input type="submit" />
</form>

The above HTML code will show the user 5 text fields, in which the user can input data and a Submit button. Upon clicking the Submit button the data submitted by the user will be passed to a script named insert.php.

That script can have a syntax similar to the following:

<?php
$username = "your_username";
$password = "your_pass";
$database = "your_db";

$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", $username, $password, $database);

// Don't forget to properly escape your values before you send them to DB
// to prevent SQL injection attacks.

$field1 = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['field1']);
$field2 = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['field2']);
$field3 = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['field3']);
$field4 = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['field4']);
$field5 = $mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['field5']);

$query = "INSERT INTO table_name (col1, col2, col3, col4, col5)
            VALUES ('{$field1}','{$field2}','{$field3}','{$field4}','{$field5}')";

$mysqli->query($query);
$mysqli->close();

After the user submits the information, the insert.php script will save it in the database table. Then you may want to output that information, so that the user can see it on the page. The first command you will need to use is the SELECT FROM MySQL statement that has the following syntax:

SELECT * FROM table_name;

This is a basic MySQL query which will tell the script to select all the records from the table_name table. After the query is executed, usually you would want the result from it stored inside a variable. This can be done with the following PHP code:

<?php
$query = $mysqli->query("SELECT * FROM table_name");

The whole content of the table is now included in a PHP array with the name $result. Before you can output this data you should change each piece into a separate variable. There are two stages.

Now, we have to set up the loop. It will take each row of the result and print the data stored there. This way we will display all the records in the table:

$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name";

if ($result = $mysqli->query($query)) {

    /* fetch associative array */
    while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        $field1name = $row["col1"];
        $field2name = $row["col2"];
        $field3name = $row["col3"];
        $field4name = $row["col4"];
        $field5name = $row["col5"];
    }

    /* free result set */
    $result->free();
}

You can now write a full script to output the data. In this script the data is not formatted when it is printed:

<?php
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$database = "your_database";
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", $username, $password, $database);

$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name";
echo "<b> <center>Database Output</center> </b> <br> <br>";

if ($result = $mysqli->query($query)) {

    while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        $field1name = $row["col1"];
        $field2name = $row["col2"];
        $field3name = $row["col3"];
        $field4name = $row["col4"];
        $field5name = $row["col5"];

        echo '<b>'.$field1name.$field2name.'</b><br />';
        echo $field5name.'<br />';
        echo $field5name.'<br />';
        echo $field5name;
    }

/*freeresultset*/
$result->free();
}

This outputs a list of all the values stored in the database. This will give you a very basic output which is not useful for a live website. Instead, it would be better if you could format it into a table and display the information in it. To apply formatting you need to use HTML to print the result by including the variables in the correct spaces. The easiest way to do this is by closing the PHP tag and entering HTML normally. When you reach a variable position, include it as follows:

<?php echo $variablename; ?>

in the correct position in your code.

You can also use the PHP loop to repeat the appropriate code and include it as part of a larger table. The final output is:

<html>
<body>
<?php 
$username = "username"; 
$password = "password"; 
$database = "your_database"; 
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", $username, $password, $database); 
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name";


echo '<table border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="2"> 
      <tr> 
          <td> <font face="Arial">Value1</font> </td> 
          <td> <font face="Arial">Value2</font> </td> 
          <td> <font face="Arial">Value3</font> </td> 
          <td> <font face="Arial">Value4</font> </td> 
          <td> <font face="Arial">Value5</font> </td> 
      </tr>';

if ($result = $mysqli->query($query)) {
    while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        $field1name = $row["col1"];
        $field2name = $row["col2"];
        $field3name = $row["col3"];
        $field4name = $row["col4"];
        $field5name = $row["col5"]; 

        echo '<tr> 
                  <td>'.$field1name.'</td> 
                  <td>'.$field2name.'</td> 
                  <td>'.$field3name.'</td> 
                  <td>'.$field4name.'</td> 
                  <td>'.$field5name.'</td> 
              </tr>';
    }
    $result->free();
} 
?>
</body>
</html>

This code will print out table content and add an extra row for each record in the database, formatting the data as it is printed.