Coloring rows in returned drupal search results

Question

I'm trying to modify search-result.tpl.php and template.php to color the backgrounds of search results returned such that every row has a different color than the one that preceded it. Only two colors are used. so, row #1 returned would have background #eee and row 2 would have #ff0000 as its background color. It would start over again at row #3 having #eee and so on. This is easily enough accomplished with PHP. But how can I implement this with Drupal?

Here's how I'm trying to print it out in search-result.tpl.php:

<li class="<?php print $classes; ?>"<?php print $attributes; ?>>
  <div class="search-snippet-info">
    <?php $inc=0; ?>
      <?php if ($inc %2 == 0) {
                $color = '#eee';
              } else {  
                $color = '#ff0000';
              }
              ?>
      <div style="background-color: <?php print $color ?>">
      <div class="icon" style="float:left;"><?php print render($teaser['field_icon']); ?></div>
      <div class="teaser">
      <header>
      <h2><a href="<?php print $result['link']; ?>"><?php print $result['title']; ?></a></h2>
      </header>
      <em><?php print render($teaser['field_type']); ?></em>
      <strong><?php print render($teaser['field_event_dates']); ?></strong>
      <?php print render($teaser['body']); ?>
      </div>
      <?php $inc++; ?>
      </div>
  </div>
</li>

Not getting errors, but the results are not what I was expecting. Each row is just returning the same color background #eee, the first color). So either the $inc variable is not getting incremented or (perhaps more likely) it's becoming '0' again after every returned result. So then I'm thinking maybe I need to add something to my preprocess_search_result function in my template.php file...but I don't know what to add there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

In your search-result.tpl.php you should have a $zebra variable available for your use, which will be either "odd" or "even" so you can use that in place of trying to track your $inc variable. The $zebra variable is added by template_preprocess().

Answer 2

I would create your search results page using views, this has the odd/even class functionality built-in. The current code you provided won't work since the $inc value starts as 0 and there is no loop where $inc++ occurs so everytime this template is loaded $inc will start as 0 and end as 1.