Easiest way to alternate row colors in PHP/HTML?

Question

Here\'s a PHP example of mine. Can anyone find a shorter/easier way to do this?

Answer 1

You can abuse the $GLOBAL scope to store the current selected class state, see below table_row_toggle() function. Yes, I know its dirty to abuse the $GLOBAL scope, but hey, we're here to fix problems ain't we? :)

Calling the table row toggle function in HTML:

>

The function in PHP:

/* function to toggle row colors in tables */
function table_row_toggle() {
    /* check if $trclass is defined in caller */
    if(array_key_exists('trclass', $GLOBALS)) {
        $trclass = $GLOBALS['trclass'];
    }   

    /* toggle between row1 and row2 */
    if(!isset($trclass) || $trclass == 'row2') {
        $trclass = 'row1';
    } else {
        $trclass = 'row2';
    }   

    /* set $trclass in caller */
    $GLOBALS['trclass'] = $trclass;

    /* write the desired class to the caller */
    echo ' class="' . $trclass . '"';
}