I was recently engaged with a PHP application where dynamic pagination is needed. I faced many problems and took much time to build dynamic pagination function. If you are a person who involved in developing a site with pagination, here is the right plugin. Don’t waste your time by building it from scratch. Here, I have provided the function and methods to use. The script is user-friendly and allows you to style as you need.

Screen shots with different pages selected:

VIEW DEMO

The Function:

<?php
function pagination($total_num_results,$posts_per_page,$cur_page) {
  $no = $total_num_results / $posts_per_page;
  $no = ceil($no);
  $prev="";
  $pages_html="";

  $start_page=$cur_page-2;
  $end_page=$cur_page+2;
  $start_diff=$cur_page-1;
  $end_diff=$no-$cur_page;
  if($end_diff < 2) {
    $start_page=$cur_page+$end_diff;
    $start_page=$start_page-4;
  }
  while($start_page < 1) { $start_page=$start_page+1; }
  if($start_diff < 2) {
    $end_page=$cur_page-$start_diff;
    $end_page=$end_page+4;
  }
  while($end_page > $no) { $end_page=$end_page-1; }

  //creating div with `id`=pagination
  $pages_html .= "<div id='pagination' >";

  //displaying current page out of the total number of pages available
  $pages_html .= "<label class='disptext' >Page ".$cur_page." of ".$no."</label>";
  //appending first page button
  if($start_diff > 2) { $pages_html .= "<a href='?page=1' > << First </a>"; }
  //appending previous page button
  if($cur_page > 1) { $prev=$cur_page-1; $pages_html .= "<a href='?page=".$prev."' > < Prev </a>"; }

  //appending the page number buttons
  for($i=$start_page; $i<=$end_page; $i++) { $pages_html .= "<a href='?page=".$i."' id='page".$i."' > ".$i." </a>"; }

  //appending the next page button
  if($cur_page < $no) { $next=$cur_page+1; $pages_html .= "<a href='?page=".$next."' > Next > </a>"; }

  //Appending the last page button
  if($end_diff > 2) { $pages_html .= "<a href='?page=".$no."' > Last >> </a>"; }
  //jquery script to highlight the current page button
  $pages_html .= "<script type='text/javascript'>var d = document.getElementById('page".$cur_page."');
  d.className += ' selectedpage';</script>";
  $pages_html .= "</div><!--pagination-->";

  return $pages_html; //returns html content.
}
?>

Copy the above PHP function any where on your page and call it where it is required.

Calling The Function:

<?php
  $total_num_results=23;
       //or get the count dynamically as shown below.
       $query=mysql_query("YOUR QUERY TO FETCH RESULTS FROM DATABASE"); //query to show results from.
       $total_num_results = mysql_num_rows($query); //Total count of the fetched results.
       //////////////////////////////////
  $posts_per_page="15"; //how many results do you need to show on a single page.
  $cur_page="1"; //current page. by default it is set to 1.
  if(isset($_GET['page'])) { $cur_page=$_GET['page']; } //if variable `page` is set in url parameters, then change the current page.
  $html=pagination($total_num_results,$posts_per_page,$cur_page); //calling pagination function.
  echo $html; //printing the result.
?>

The above code is pasted where you need to call the function. All the variables declared above are required (Description about each variable is given in comments).

Default CSS:

 #pagination { width: 600px;margin: 0 auto; }
 #pagination a { padding: 5px 10px; margin: 2px 3px 0px 3px; float: left; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;
                 font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif; color: #666; background-color:#eeeeee;
                 text-decoration: none; border-radius: 5px; }
 #pagination a.selectedpage, #pagination a:hover { background-color: lightblue; color: #fff;}
 #pagination .disptext{ margin: 5px 5px 0 10px; float: left; color: #666;
                 font-family: Muli, 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;}

I have provided the default css styles. You can edit easily however you need.

If you got struck at any point, feel free to leave a comment. I will help you out as soon as possible.