Styling PHP Array POST output with HTML / CSS (Making it Pretty)

Question

You guys are awesome! Thank you so much for answering this so quickly. I was missing a couple of .'s and ;'s but this is even more detailed than I expected!! The column trick and border was an excellent touch! Thank you all!

I have a php form that I want to send to an email, but it looks terrible with just

Name: Entered Name
Email: Entered Email
etc

Can anyone help me style this into a table, I keep getting errors trying to figure it out myself, and I've searched for examples but none use the type of code my form is using and i'm probably missing something. I believe this is the relevant section I need to do:

    // If the e-mail is not working, change the debug option to 2 | $debug = 2;
    $debug = 0;

    $subject = $_POST['subject'];

    $fields = array(
        0 => array(
            'text' => 'First Name',
            'val' => $_POST['fname']
        ),
        1 => array(
            'text' => 'Last Name',
            'val' => $_POST['lname']
        ),
        2 => array(
            'text' => 'Address',
            'val' => $_POST['address']
        ),
        3 => array(
            'text' => 'City',
            'val' => $_POST['city']
        ),
        4 => array(
            'text' => 'State',
            'val' => $_POST['state']
        ),
        5 => array(
            'text' => 'Zip Code',
            'val' => $_POST['zip']
        ),
        6 => array(
            'text' => 'Date of Birth',
            'val' => $_POST['dob']
        ),
        7 => array(
            'text' => 'Phone Number',
            'val' => $_POST['phone']
        ),
        8 => array(
            'text' => 'Email Address',
            'val' => $_POST['email']
        ),
        9 => array(
            'text' => 'Position Desired',
            'val' => $_POST['position']
        ),
        10 => array(
            'text' => 'Available Start Date',
            'val' => $_POST['start']
        ),
        11 => array(
            'text' => 'Referred By',
            'val' => $_POST['referred']
        ),
        12 => array(
            'text' => 'Additional Info',
            'val' => $_POST['message']
        )
    );

    $message = '';
    $message .= '<h1>We Have a New Jobs Application!</h1>';

    foreach($fields as $field) {
        $message .= $field['text'].": " . htmlspecialchars($field['val'], ENT_QUOTES) . "<br>\n";
    }

    $mail = new PHPMailer(true);

"I keep getting errors" - What errors are you getting? And show us your attempt. — M. Eriksson
– M. Eriksson, Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 21:19
Can you add the rest of the code, where you are defining and sending the email? — Mike Donkers
– Mike Donkers, Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 21:19
In your case, you don't need to add the keys when adding the nested arrays. You can do just: $fields = [ ['text' => '...', 'val' => '...'], ['text' => '...', 'val' => '...'], and so on... ] — M. Eriksson
– M. Eriksson, Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 21:21

aidinMC · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-04 21:27:41Z

1

You can add any style in foreach loop easily !

foreach($fields as $field) {
    $message .= "<span style='font-weight:bold;color:#000'>" . $field['text'].":</span><span style='color:#ccc;'>" . htmlspecialchars($field['val'], ENT_QUOTES) . "</span><br>\n";
}

to make table:

$message .= "<table>";
$message .= "<thead>";
$message .= "<tr><th>column1</><th>column2</th></tr>";
$message .="</thead>";
$message .= "<tbody>";
foreach($fields as $field) {
    $message .= "<tr><td>". $field['text']. "</td><td>" . htmlspecialchars($field['val'], ENT_QUOTES) . "<td></tr>";
}
$message .= "</tbody>";
$message .= "</table";

edited Aug 4, 2017 at 21:27

answered Aug 4, 2017 at 21:21

aidinMC

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Comments

Auskennfuchs · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-04 21:25:29Z

0

$message.="<table>";
foreach($fields as $field) {
    $message.="<tr>";
    $message .= "<td>".$field['text']."</td><td>" . htmlspecialchars($field['val'], ENT_QUOTES) . "</td>";
    $message.="</tr>";
}
$message.="</table>";

But maybe checkout some template libraries like smarty to encapsulate the view from the data.

answered Aug 4, 2017 at 21:25

Auskennfuchs

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Comments

Mike Donkers · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-04 21:26:55Z

You need to tell PHPMailer that your content is HTML after setting the body of the email, you can do this by calling the isHTML() method

$mail->Subject = $Subject;
$mail->Body    = $Body;
$mail->IsHTML(true);

In the body you can just generate a table from your foreach

$message = "<table border='1'>";
foreach($fields as $field) {
    $message .= "<tr><td>".$field['text'].": " . htmlspecialchars($field['val'], ENT_QUOTES) . "</td></tr>";
}
$message .= "</table>";

Note This is an example, your table may have to look different, this is only a pointer in the right direction

Joaquin Peraza · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-04 21:28:03Z

0

It should be somethink like that:

 $message .= '<table>';

$message .= '<tr> <th>text</th>  <th>value</th> </tr>';

 foreach($fields as $field) {
 $message .= '<tr>';
 $message .= '<td>'.$field['text'].'</td><td>'.htmlspecialchars($field['val'], ENT_QUOTES) . "</td>";
$message .= '</tr>';
    }
$message .= '</table>';

answered Aug 4, 2017 at 21:28

Joaquin Peraza

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