How Can I Dynamically Generate HTML Tables from MySQL Data Using PHP?

Generating Dynamic HTML Tables using MySQL and PHP

It is often a scenario where you need to generate HTML tables on the fly based on MySQL database data. However, updating the HTML table manually can become tedious, especially when column headers change in the database.

Dynamic Solution with PHP

To address this issue, you can leverage PHP to create a dynamic solution that generates HTML tables based on MySQL data automatically. Here's how you can approach this:

MySQLi Solution

1. Define a function, such as outputMySQLToHTMLTable(), that takes a MySQLi connection and a table name as arguments.
2. Within the function, use SHOW TABLES to verify that the table exists.
3. Execute SELECT * FROM $table to fetch all the data from the table.
4. Use fetch_fields() to retrieve metadata about the table columns, which will provide the column names for the table header.
5. Use fetch_all() to retrieve all the table data as an associative array.
6. Create an HTML table using echo statements, including the table header, data rows, and a message for empty tables.

PDO Solution

The approach using PDO is similar to MySQLi, but there are some API differences to consider:

1. Use fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_COLUMN) instead of array_column() to get table names.
2. Use getColumnMeta() instead of fetch_fields() to get column metadata.

Implementation Example

Here's an example implementation using both MySQLi and PDO:

// MySQLi Example
outputMySQLToHTMLTable($mysqli, 'user');

// PDO Example
outputMySQLToHTMLTable($pdo, 'user');

With these functions in place, you can dynamically generate HTML tables for any table in your MySQL database without manually updating the code.

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