There may be times when you have empty values in some fields. If that is
the case you can run conditional if and else statements on the returned
data to see if there are empty values, matches, or whatever the logic
needs to be. In this example we are going to display alternate data from
another field if the target field has an empty value.
In the example below we have a member table that holds member
information. If the website field is empty for that member, I am going
to display their name field's data instead. Both fields used must be
defined in the SQL command to return in the while loop.
Show alternate field if a field's value is empty:
<?php
// connect to your MySQL database here
require_once "connect_to_mysql.php";
// Build sql command
$sqlCommand = "SELECT id, username, website FROM members";
// Execute the query here now
$query = mysql_query($sqlCommand) or die (mysql_error());
// Output the data using a while loop
$siteDisplay = "";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)) {
// Gather all $row values into local variables
$uid = $row["id"];
$username = $row["username"];
$website = $row["website"];
// Run conditional to see if the desired field is empty
// If it is we display alternate content from another field in their row
if (!$website) {
$siteDisplay = "$username";
} else {
$siteDisplay = "$website";
}
// echo the output to browser
echo "User ID: $uid • $siteDisplay<hr />";
}
// Free the results
mysql_free_result($query);
// close mysql connection
mysql_close();
?>
User ID: 1 • www.flashbuilding.com
User ID: 2 • www.joecool.com
User ID: 3 • Sally
User ID: 4 • www.williamawesome.com
User ID: 6 • www.webintersect.com
User ID: 5 • Tara
User ID: 7 • www.weheardyoufart.com
User ID: 8 • Adam
