pagination_view.php

<?php
//this would come from a database count function
$totalPages = 200;
//presumably this comes from the get variable
$currentPage = 20;

//if the current page > total pages, just set it to the number of pages,
//someone is messing with the url
if ($currentPage > $totalPages) {
    $currentPage = $totalPages;
}
// The goal is to have a pager showing (if available) 5 numbers,
// with the current page number in the middle, if available.
// <<First and <Previous are shown if you can't see page 1,
// and Next> and Last>> are shown if you can't see the last page.

$pager = '<ul class="pager">' . PHP_EOL;
$start = 1;
if ($currentPage > 2) {
    $start = $currentPage - 2;
}
//we can start by assuming that the page is start + 4 because we want to show 5
$end = $start + 4;
if ($end > $totalPages) {
    $end = $totalPages;
} else if ($end == $totalPages && $start > 2) {
    $diff = $totalPages - $currentPage;
    $start -= ( 2 - $diff);
} else if ($start == 1 && $end < $totalPages) {
    $diff = $currentPage - 1;
    $end += ( 2 - $diff);
}

if ($start > 1) {
    $pager .= '<li><a href="/1">&laquo; First</a></li>' . PHP_EOL;
    $prev = $currentPage - 1;
    $pager .= '<li><a href="/' . $prev . '">&lsaquo; Previous</a></li>' . PHP_EOL;
    $pager .= '<li>...</li>' . PHP_EOL;
}
for ($i = $start; $i<=$end; $i++) {
    $pager .= '<li><a ';
    if ($currentPage == $i) {
        $pager .= 'class="current" ';
    }
    $pager .= 'href="/' . $i . '">' . $i . '</a></li>' . PHP_EOL;
}

if ($end < $totalPages) {
    $pager .= '<li>...</li>' . PHP_EOL;
    $pager .= '<li><a href="/' . ++$currentPage . '">Next &rsaquo;</a></li>' . PHP_EOL;
    $pager .= '<li><a href=/"' . $totalPages . '">Last &raquo;</a></li>' . PHP_EOL;
}
$pager .= '</ul>';


echo $pager;

That is why I use it (also it auto completes so no chance of a typo), and it doesn't go in quotes, so no need to switch quoting styles all over the place.

Also there is DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR (which I usually define as DS since I end up using it a lot... and PATH_SEPARATOR which is important if you are adding things to the path (unix and windows can have different path separators).

PHP_EOL isn't really needed here, I added it so I would not have to scroll to the right to see if I finally got my solution correct (since I was printing it out on the command line).