Results Reporting / Checking with Multiple Results in For Loop

Question

hoping to be schooled a little bit here in showing "no results". This is a working snippet, but I'd like to know if there is a more elegant way to show errors when comparing multiple values in an IF statement within a ForLoop... I could have 10 results with only 2 matching my if statement:

if($value["IsArchived"] == false && !preg_match("/^123 ABC/", $value["ProjectName"]))

Is there better way than capturing a count variable $totalToShow == 0 to show my "No Results" in a new IF statement or is that ok?

$obj = drupal_json_decode($result);
//used to show NO RECORDS or not... probably a more elegant way here?!
$totalToShow = 0;
//loop through the json data and add it to the $output array.
//NOTE: not checking if any are empty
$output .= '<ul class="list-group" style="margin-bottom:15px;">';
//check if the obj is empty, if so, no records to display...
if (!empty((array) $obj)) {
 foreach($obj as $key=>$value){
 if($value["IsArchived"] == false && !preg_match("/^123 ABC/", $value["ProjectName"])){
 $totalToShow++;
 //output project name link to project # and append start/end date after link.
 $output .= '<li class="list-group-item"><strong>' . $value["ProjectName"] . '</strong> ('. _abc_date($value["CommentStart"]) . " - " . _abc_date($value["CommentEnd"]).') ';
 if($lrnmore != ""){
 $output .= ' | <a href="CommentInput?project='.$value["ProjectNumber"].'">'. $lrnmore .'</a>';
 } 
 $output .= '| <a href="ReadingRoom?project='.$value["ProjectNumber"].'">View Comments</a><br/>';
 $output .= '<ul><li>' . $value["Description"] . '</li></ul>';
 $output .= "</li>";
 }
 }
 if($totalToShow == 0){
 $output .= '<li class="list-group-item">No Records to Display</li>';
 }

Answer 1

In case there is any chance to use a template engine, then you should prepare your data first

$obj = drupal_json_decode($result);
$output = [];
foreach($obj as $row){
 if(!$value["IsArchived"] && !preg_match("/^123 ABC/", $value["ProjectName"])){
 $row['CommentStart'] = _abc_date($value["CommentStart"]);
 $row['CommentEnd'] = _abc_date($value["CommentEnd"]);
 $output[] = $row;
 } 
}

and then output it (an exampe is using Twig template engine but the logic would be the same even with raw PHP)

{% for value in output %}
 <li class="list-group-item">
 <strong>{{ value["ProjectName"]}}</strong>
 ({{ value["CommentStart"] }} - {{ value["CommentEnd"] }})
 {% if lrnmore %}
 | <a href="CommentInput?project= {{ value["ProjectNumber"] }}">
 {{ lrnmore }}
 </a>
 {% endif %} 
 | <a href="ReadingRoom?project={{ value["ProjectNumber"] }}">
 View Comments
 </a><br/>
 <ul><li> {{ value["Description"] }}</li></ul>
 </li>
{% endfor %}
{% if not output %}
 <li class="list-group-item">No Records to Display</li>
{% endif %}

this way you will have a clear separation between the business logic and display logic and as a bonus you will have HTML which is readable and maintainable.