A couple years back, I used a technique to simplify code that iterates over an array and displays it as a table.

A typical way to turn this one-dimensional list of values into a two-dimensional table is to nest two FOR loops. So if you have a three column layout, you write one outer loop that goes from 1 to EOF, and inside that, you have a loop that goes from 1 to 3.

That's not a nice way to do it, because 1/3 of the time, you end the loop before the inner loop completes. The code can get ugly.

The way I dealt with it was to get rid of the loop and return to the more primitive iterator pattern. Then, just check if our index happens to land on 3. Here's a class that does it:

class BizBuzz 
{
function BizBuz( $biz, $buz ) 
{
	$this->biz = $biz;
	$this->buz = $buz;
	$this->reset();
}
function reset() { $this->counter = 0; }
function next() {
	$this->counter++;
	$this->isBiz = ( 0 == ($this->biz % $this->counter) );
	$this->isBuz = ( 0 == ($this->buz % $this->counter) );
	return $this->counter;
}
}

That's untested code. The idea is to put the logic right around the increment operation. You can use these flags later in the layout or other parts of the app.