Code: ASP/VBScript, properly nested list from array

mcwilliams — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:48:41 +0000

Eureka! Finally!

It only took me about 5 days of tinkering but I managed to code a dynamic, multi-nested list from an array.

The project is to expand the number of levels that available to the web sites at work. Currently we only alloted two level. That was a number of years ago. Now some of our devisions are revamping their content and are needing multiple levels.

So I met with our database guys (DBAs) to draft up a cross reference relational table structure and some stored procedures to bring back the hierarchy of pages so I can draw up a properly nested list of links to use as page navigation (wow that was a long sentence). I’ve been banging my head against the wall for the better part of the week – getting close to a solution but then scrapping the code to come at the problem at a different angle. Today I finally made it work and it’s universal (hopefully).

The logic is what tripped me up. I had to think backwards in a way to determine how to close the list items (

) and any nested lists.

Here’s what I wrote. Assume we have our recordset returned as a 2d array via GetRows. There’s more to be done as proper tabbing, and other site-based logic but this gets the output I need.

<% ' ------------------------------------- dim numcols, numrows ' cols = 1 ' rows = 2 numcols=ubound(alldata,1) numrows=ubound(alldata,2)


' our fields

dim fld_xref, fld_id, fld_title

dim title, id, xref
 fld_title = 0

 fld_id  = 1

 fld_xref  = 2
' our formating

dim ul_open, ul_close, li_open, li_close, list_close
 ul_open  = "
" & nl

 ul_close  = "
" & nl

 

 li_open  = vbTab & "

"

 li_close  = "

" & nl

 

 list_close =  ul_close & nl & li_close & nl
dim x

dim l

dim levels

dim tempArray

dim parentID

dim lastID

dim lastXref

 

' response.Write("
[+] Expand All | [-] Collapse All 
" & nl)

 Response.Write("

" & nl)
For x = 0 to numRows
' --------------------------------------------------

' Set the stage

' --------------------------------------------------

 

 title  = Trim(allData(fld_title, x))

 id  = allData(fld_id, x)

 xref = allData(fld_xref, x)
 ' ignore first pass

 if x > 0 then

 

  if xref = lastID then

  ' LAST ID WAS PARENT TO CURRENT ID

  ' open a new

  

   parentID = lastID

   levels = levels & " " & lastID

   response.Write(nl & ul_open)

   

  elseif xref = lastXref then

  ' Current ID is a sibling

  ' we'll just close the previous 

   response.Write(li_close & nl)

   

  else

  ' we're not sure what we're dealing with

  ' more than likely we need to close a nested list

     

   'close the last

response.Write(li_close) ' generate our array of parent IDs tempArray = Split(levels) ' walk backwards through the array so ' we get the proper count of lists to close for l = Ubound(tempArray) to 1 Step -1 parentID = CInt(tempArray(l)) if xref <> parentID then ' if xref does not match our parent ID ' close the list response.Write(list_close) ' remove the previous ID from the list ' so the next walk throug, there will be one less levels = replace(levels, " " & parentID, "") else ' we have a match, stop processing the list exit for end if next end if end if ' output our record response.Write(li_open) response.Write(title & " | id: " & id & " | xref: " & xref & " | levels: " & levels) lastID = id lastXref = xref Next
response.Write(li_close) Response.Write(nl & ul_close) %>

McWilliams' World » Code

Code: ASP/VBScript, properly nested list from array