adding a line break after a variable changes

[michalis]

hello guys, I am new to php and only took it up recently when I decided to start my own website

I am using joomla cms to administer the website and I have this software that lists sports games, which are group according to category

at the moment all game appear as one big list, what I want to do is add a break between each category, here is a part of the code

PHP Code: [Select]

<tbody>
<?php for ($i=0,$k=0,$n=count($this->items); $i<$n; $i++,$k=1-$k): ?>

<tr class="<?php echo "row$k"; ?>">

<td class="secenter"><?php echo $this->items[$i]->cat_name, '<br />', $this->items[$i]->date; ?></td>

<td width="30px" align="left">
<?php  if (empty($this->items[$i]->t1_flag)): ?>

&nbsp;
<?php else: ?>

<img height="13px" width="19px" src="<?php echo JURI::root(TRUE).'/components/com_sportspredictions/images/'.$this->items[$i]->t1_flag;?>" />
<?php endif; ?>

</td>

<td class="secenter" width="1%" nowrap="nowrap"><?php

echo empty($this->items[$i]->descr) ?

$this->items[$i]->t1_name.' - '.$this->items[$i]->t2_name :

'<a href="'.JRoute::_('index.php?option=com_sportspredictions&view=match&id_mat='.$this->items[$i]->id_mat).'">'.$this->items[$i]->t1_name.' - '.$this->items[$i]->t2_name.'</a>';

?></td>

<td width="30px" align="right">
<?php  if (empty($this->items[$i]->t2_flag)): ?>

&nbsp;
<?php else: ?>

<img height="13px" width="19px" src="<?php echo JURI::root(TRUE).'/components/com_sportspredictions/images/'.$this->items[$i]->t2_flag;?>" />
<?php endif; ?>

</td>

<td class="secenter" nowrap="nowrap">

<input type="text" name="predictions[<?php echo $this->items[$i]->id_mat; ?>][1]" style="width:20px" maxlength="2" value="<?php echo $this->items[$i]->prev_equipe1; ?>" />

:

<input type="text" name="predictions[<?php echo $this->items[$i]->id_mat; ?>][2]" style="width:20px" maxlength="2" value="<?php echo $this->items[$i]->prev_equipe2; ?>" />

</td>

</tr>
<?php endfor; ?>

</tbody>

the $item is a single game and the cat_name is the category name, every item/game belongs to a category

I am assuming that cat_name is a variable

is there a piece of code I can add that will add a break at the end of this code every time the cat_name variable changes?