I have been working on trying to get a bunch of data to work in a table structure displayed neatly using PHP, and I must say I am having a difficult time. I have finally been able to call the columns so that in case I add a field it will always add it in my table, and I hope for this to be very easily managed. However, when I initially set up the table, I put it in a random order. Now when I come use the DESCRIBE table it gives them to me in exact order, and I cannot find a way to organize them better. It would not make sense to say have month/year at the end of the database for my form that I have.

<?php
require 'connect.php';
?>
<h3>Monthly Finances | <a href="new.php">Add New Month</a> </h3>
<table border="1" bordercolor ="#000000">
<tr>
<?php
$columns = "DESCRIBE  `month` ";
if($query_run_columns = mysql_query($columns)){
    $columnNames = array();
        while($column = mysql_fetch_assoc($query_run_columns)){
        echo '<th>'.$column['Field'].'</th>';
    }
}else{
    echo'sql error';
}

?>

<?php
$gatherdata = "SELECT `month`, `year`,`rent`,`electric`,`cable`,`cellphone`,`renters` FROM `month` ";
if($query_run = mysql_query($gatherdata)){

    while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query_run)){
        $rent = $row['rent'];
        $electric = $row['electric'];
        $cable = $row['cable'];
        $cellphone = $row['cellphone'];
        $renters = $row['renters'];
        $month = $row['month'];
        $year = $row['year'];

        echo '<tr>';
        echo '<td align="center">'.$month.'</td>';
        echo '<td algin="center">'.$year.'</td>';
        echo '<td align="center">'.$rent.'</td>';
        echo '<td align="center">'.$electric.'</td>';
        echo '<td align="center">'.$cable.'</td>';
        echo '<td align="center">'.$cellphone.'</td>';
        echo '<td align="center">'.$renters.'</td>';
        echo '</tr>';
    }
}else{
    echo 'query error';
}
?>
<br>View by month
</table>
<form action="index.php" method="GET">
<select name="months" value="all">
<?php
$gathermonths = "SELECT `month`, `year` FROM `month";

if($query_month_selector = mysql_query($gathermonths)){
    while($month_row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query_month_selector)){
        $month = $month_row['month'];
        $year = $month_row['year'];

        echo '<option value="'.$month.' '.$year.'">' .$month.' '.$year.'</option>';
    }
}
echo $_GET['months'];
?>
<input type="submit" value="View Selected Date"></input>
</select>
</form>

My code is very far from complete, or orderly but I have been slacking on this project and I will clean it up more when I have more time. But if you could please give me a hand on an efficient organizational method that would be appreciated.

Do your tables contain an index/id?

You can easily order them in ascending/descending by "ORDER BY"

ALTER TABLE `table_name` ORDER BY `id`

Note default ORDER BY is in ascending order. Put DESC at the end if you want descending.

If you want your mysql query to output results in a nice ordered fashion, you can also use ORDER BY in the query:

$gathermonths = "SELECT `month`, `year` FROM `month` ORDER BY `month` DESC";

There is also GROUP BY functions in case you wanted to group your results by month:

$gathermonths = "SELECT `month`, `year` FROM `month` GROUP BY `month`";