How do I split an existing HTML table into 4 evenly sized tables using PHP?

Question

A website that I'm working on already has around 140 HTML files and each file contains a different HTML table. Each table has anywhere between 10 and approx 400 rows with 2 columns. This is old code which doesn't meet standards and at the moment I'm trying to make do with that old code.

Here's an example:

<TABLE BORDER=0>
  <TR><TD><FONT SIZE=1>Row 1 Col 1</TD><TD WIDTH+20><FONT SIZE=1>Row 1 Col 2</TD><TR>
<TR><TD><FONT SIZE=1>Row 2 Col 1</TD><TD WIDTH+20><FONT SIZE=1>Row 2 Col 2</TD><TR>
<TR><TD><FONT SIZE=1>Row 3 Col 1</TD><TD WIDTH+20><FONT SIZE=1>Row 3 Col 2</TD><TR>
...
</TABLE>

I'm trying to find a way in PHP to count how many rows there are in the table, and then split the rows into 4 divs. So if we had a table with 100 rows. The first 25 rows would go into this div:

<div class="span3"><table>{first 25 rows go here}</table></div>

and so on...

<div class="span3"><table>{next 25 rows go here}</table></div>
<div class="span3"><table>{next 25 rows go here}</table></div>
<div class="span3"><table>{next 25 rows go here}</table></div>

until finally we get something resembling:

<div class="row-fluid">
  <div class="span3"><table>{first 25% rows go here}</table></div>
  <div class="span3"><table>{next 25% rows go here}</table></div>
  <div class="span3"><table>{next 25% rows go here}</table></div>
  <div class="span3"><table>{next 25% rows go here}</table></div>
</div>

All of this needs to be done without actually editing the code in the existing tables. Does anyone know how I'd do this with PHP?

what did you did so far other than asking this question? Refer these : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3553897/what-is-the-fastest-way-to-convert-html-table-to-php-array http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12445962/html-table-to-array-php http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3553897/what-is-the-fastest-way-to-convert-html-table-to-php-array — limovala, Jul 08 '13 at 11:45
@limovala - What did this guy try: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/840948/stripping-everything-but-alphanumeric-chars-from-a-string-in-php? Look at those votes! — Expedito, Jul 08 '13 at 11:53
You should parse it with some PHP tool as already pointed out. I would just gather the stuff you need via jQuery [much easier than dealing with parsers], serialize it as JSON, then do whatever you want with it. — moonwave99, Jul 08 '13 at 11:56
@PédeLeão, I found no research effort from Mark21,I already pointed 3 out of several links which he could use to solve his issue. — limovala, Jul 09 '13 at 04:17

Expedito · Answer 1 · 2013-07-08T17:06:23.100

1

I would use the DomDocument model, something like this:

$dom = new domDocument;
@$dom->loadHTML($html);
$rows = $dom->getElementsByTagName('tr');

edited Jul 08 '13 at 17:06

answered Jul 08 '13 at 12:14

Expedito

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score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 08 '13 at 16:59

Thank you for the tips everyone. This is how I answered the question, going down the DomDocument route.

 <?php

  $dom = new DOMDocument();

  //load the html
  $html = $dom->loadHTMLFile($path.$filename);

  //discard white space 
  $dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false; 

  //the table by its tag name
  $tables = $dom->getElementsByTagName('table'); 

  //get all rows from the table
  $rows = $tables->item(0)->getElementsByTagName('tr'); 

$numberofrows = $tables->item(0)->getElementsByTagName('tr')->length;

$numberincolumn = ceil($numberofrows / 4);

  $counter = 0;
echo '<div class="row-fluid"><div class="span3"><table>';
  // loop over the table rows

  foreach ($rows as $row) 
  { 


    if ($counter > 0 && $counter % $numberincolumn == 0){
    echo '</table></div><div class="span3"><table>';    
    }



   // get each column by tag name
      $cols = $row->getElementsByTagName('td'); 
   // echo the values  
      echo "<tr><td style='padding-left:10px;'>".$cols->item(0)->nodeValue.'</td>'; 
      echo "<td>".$cols->item(1)->nodeValue.'</td></tr>'; 
      $counter++;
    } 
    echo "</table></div></div>";
*/
?>

Glad you figured it out. I was actually working on it just now, but my experience with the class is limited, so I'm learning as I go. — Expedito, Jul 08 '13 at 17:06

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 08 '13 at 11:49

try something link this

$data = "<TABLE BORDER=0>
  <TR><TD><FONT SIZE=1>Row 1 Col 1</TD><TD WIDTH+20><FONT SIZE=1>Row 1 Col 2</TD><TR>
<TR><TD><FONT SIZE=1>Row 2 Col 1</TD><TD WIDTH+20><FONT SIZE=1>Row 2 Col 2</TD><TR>
<TR><TD><FONT SIZE=1>Row 3 Col 1</TD><TD WIDTH+20><FONT SIZE=1>Row 3 Col 2</TD><TR>
...
</TABLE>";
$data = array_shift($data); // first array (table) 
$rows = explode("<TR>",$data); // you will loose the <TR> so you will need to add the <TR> back on to the begining

$numrows = count($rows);

How do I split an existing HTML table into 4 evenly sized tables using PHP?

3 Answers3