Dynamic Forms

brett

Hi, I was wondering if someone could help me figure out how to populate a dropdown list with data from a MySQL database. I guess the part I don't get is how can I get the first listing to be selected so that is shows in the form without clicking the dropdown arrow. Also, how can I populate that dropdown list from info in one table, and then have selected a specific record that is specified in a separate table but is also in the first table populating the dropdown list?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Brett

bastien

part one:

populating the dropdown

<?
//include the db connection file
require("dbconn.php");

//set the sql statement to select all the data in the table
$sql="select * from mytable";

//execute the query
$result=mysql_query($sql,$link) or die ("Can't connect to db");

//build the select box
echo "<select name=\'myfield\'>";

//set a counter to make the first record the selected one
$x=1;
//if the query suceeded print the results
if (!$result){
while $rows=mysql_fetch_array($result){
if ($x==1){

   //fill the options in the select box - note the single quotes 
   //around the value--- for the [b]selected[/b] value
   echo "<option value='".$rows['thefield']."' SELECTED>".$rows['thefield']."</option>";
   //increase the counter to cause the rest just to be options    
   $x++;
   }elseif ($x<>1){            //item is option selected?

//fill the options in the select box - note the single quotes
//around the value
echo "<option value='".$rows['thefield']."'>".$rows['thefield']."</option>";

}else{ //else statement for the no results loop
echo "There are no results";
} //end if statement

//close select box
echo "</select>";

part 2:

do the same with the item selected coming from another table/query

you will need to do another query here to get the selected values from the users previously input data

code is very similar, so:

<?
//include the db connection file
require("dbconn.php");

//get the user defined data item for the select list
$sql1="select item from user_data_table where userid =$userid";
$user_result=mysql_query($sql1, $link) or die ("Can' t connect");

//get the item from the db - note only one item selected
$item = mysql_fetch_row($user_result)