Formatting Database Output in PHP

You already know how to retrieve data from the database. Let's now output this data, formatting it with tags.

For example, let's output the records from our test table users in the following form:

html<p>
  <b>user1</b>
  <b>23</b>
  <b>400</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>user2</b>
  <b>24</b>
  <b>500</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>user3</b>
  <b>25</b>
  <b>600</b>
</p>

First, let's get an array of records from our database:

php<?php
  $query = "SELECT * FROM users";
  $result = mysqli_query($link, $query) or die(mysqli_error($link));
  for ($data = []; $row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result); $data[] = $row);
?>

Let's now output the data from our array in a formatted form:

html<?php
  $result = '';
  
  foreach ($data as $elem) {
    $result .= '<p>';
    
    $result .= '<b>' . $elem['name'] . '</b>';
    $result .= '<b>' . $elem['age'] . '</b>';
    $result .= '<b>' . $elem['salary'] . '</b>';
    
    $result .= '</p>';
  }
  
  echo $result;
?>

It can also be rewritten in the following form:

html<?php foreach ($data as $elem): ?>
  <p>
    <b><?= $elem['name'] ?></b>
    <b><?= $elem['age'] ?></b>
    <b><?= $elem['salary'] ?></b>
  </p>
<?php endforeach; ?>

html<div>
  <h2>user1</h2>
  <p>
    23 years, <b>400$</b>
  </p>
</div>
<div>
  <h2>user2</h2>
  <p>
    24 years, <b>500$</b>
  </p>
</div>
<div>
  <h2>user3</h2>
  <p>
    25 years, <b>600$</b>
  </p>
</div>

html<table>
  <tr>
    <th>id</th>
    <th>name</th>
    <th>age</th>
    <th>salary</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>1</td>
    <td>user1</td>
    <td>23</td>
    <td>400</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>2</td>
    <td>user2</td>
    <td>25</td>
    <td>500</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>3</td>
    <td>user3</td>
    <td>23</td>
    <td>500</td>
  </tr>
</table>

html<ul>
  <li>user1</li>
  <li>user2</li>
  <li>user3</li>
</ul>