Now that you've done part one, its time to continue on with the organization of the data into a table. (This article is also named 'Data to Table'). If you are reading from Part 1 then all you need is the recordset and the connection. If you are reading from Data to Table then Step 4 really = Step 1 for you, but be sure that you have your recordset and your connection done.

Step 4: Basic Tabling

I'm going to create a table as you'll see in this next one, with 1 column and then populate it with data from Addresses (This code is outside ASP tags so be sure to close them off).

<table border=1><tr><td><strong>Addresses</strong></td></tr> <% While Not RecordSet1.EOF Response.Write("<tr><td>") %><%=(Recordset1.Fields.Item("Address").Value)%><% Response.Write("</td></tr>") RecordSet1.MoveNext Wend %> </table>

See! Simple, we create the table parameters and then whenever there is a record we stick a new row in and shove the address in, close the row and move on to the next one.

Step 5 : More, more, MORE!

So you want more than 1 column eh? Well simply add a bit more code to the While statement.

<table border=1><tr><td><strong>Addresses</strong></td><td><strong>City</strong></tr> <% While Not RecordSet1.EOF Response.Write("<tr><td>") %><%=(Recordset1.Fields.Item("Address").Value)%><% Response.Write("</td><td>") 'Don't Finish the row yet %><%=(Recordset1.Fields.Item("City").Value)%><% 'Put in a column with some 'more data RecordSet1.MoveNext Wend %> </td></tr></table>

If you know your HTML, you see that we didn't end the row quite yet, we added another column and placed the city value there, simple, and it looks like this:

Step 6 : Alternating color

Ok, that may be fine for you, but I like to alternate my color. This requires a bit more work. We have to put 2 rows of data in 1 While statement and do the row color at the same time.

<table border=1><tr><td><strong>Addresses</strong></td><td><strong>City</strong></tr> <% While Not RecordSet1.EOF Response.Write("<tr bgcolor=gray><td>") 'Put in a bgcolor for the 1st row %><%=(Recordset1.Fields.Item("Address").Value)%><% Response.Write("</td><td>") %><%=(Recordset1.Fields.Item("City").Value)%><% RecordSet1.MoveNext 'From here down, copy and paste from above. Response.Write("<tr bgcolor=silver><td>") 'Change bgcolor for the 2nd row %><%=(Recordset1.Fields.Item("Address").Value)%><% Response.Write("</td><td>") %><%=(Recordset1.Fields.Item("City").Value)%><% RecordSet1.MoveNext Wend %></td></tr></table>

Simple copy and paste from the comment but I change the row bgcolor on the second one. And this looks like this:

Wrap up

We're done! Now you know how to connect to a database, and display it to a table with alternating colors! If you are looking forward to ASP.Net you should know that you can replace the whole While statement with 1 line of code and add much more functionality.

For more info on this stuff, watch out for my next tutorial on adding more columns with custom pictures, making data into links and having it all done in ASP.