Multiple Select List

Zoo

I hope someone can help or make sense of this.

Ok, I have a list that allows the user to select multiple options and then enter it into a DB. The add works great. But when I try to edit the record I get the list printing out but I cannot get the selected items to appear selected in the list.

I know I need to loop through the main list of categories and inside of that loop run another loop comparing id's, but I just can't figure it out.

PLEASE HELP!!!!

Thanks up front for any help.

So that said here is what I have for code.

<SELECT NAME="lstCategory" SIZE="5" MULTIPLE>
<?php
include "qry_allCategory.php";

//get number of categories
if ($row = mysql_fetch_array($numCategory)) {
$numFor = $row["numCats"];
}

//loop through and print all category names to screen
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($category)) {
echo "<OPTION VALUE=";
echo $row["id"];

$nextRow = $row["id"];

//loop through selected categories and check to see if id = id of category list. If yes then mark SELECTED
if($row = mysql_fetch_array($artexCat)) {
do{
if($row["category"]==$nextRow){
echo " SELECTED>";
}
}
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($artexCat));
}

echo "</OPTION>";
}

?>
</SELECT>😕 😕 😕

saronoff

Its a little hard to decipher what exactly you're doing and it seems like you're making things harder on yourself then need be.

First off what I would do is change the name of your multi-select to have a set of brackets on the end so it would read like this:

instead of like this:

PHP will then auto-populate an array with all the selected options in the list.

Then select all the categories that you display in the list and for each of those category do a foreach or a while loop over, in your case lstCategory. If the one you're trying to print matches, print out the extra "selected", otherwise print out a ">" and you're done.

So it would be something like this:

foreach($category)
{
echo "<option value=";
echo $value;
foreach($lstCategory as $catToMatch)
{
if($value == $catToMatch)
print "selected";
}
print ">";
print $displaySelect;
}

The displaySelect is the actual thing you want the multi-select to show the user. This is all pseudo-code so you'll have to replace most things with actual variable names and such. The only thing you could probably use "out of the box" would be the foreach on lstCategory. That foreach loop should actually work perfectly given you re-name the select list.

It looked like in your solution you were using row a couple of times be careful that you're not overwriting things. It might be a good idea to use a couple of different variable names, as opposed to row a couple of time.

Also, one last note: I would use "print" instead of echo. That's a preference of mine but echo is a bit lower level then print so I think print is a bit easier to work with.

Hope this help!

Zoo

saronoff,

Thanks for the help but I am not getting all of it. I think I need to explain a bit more.

I have 2 queries pulling back info from 2 different tables.
1. is the list of all categories and
$category = mysql_query("select id, name, active from category");

is a list of the categories that are selected from that list.
$selCat = mysql_query("select category from selCategory where id= $id");

so with the first query I use a while loop to populate the select list. no problem.

<SELECT NAME="lstCategory" SIZE="5" MULTIPLE>
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($category)){

echo "<option value=";
echo $row["id"];

echo ">";
echo $row["catName"];
}
</SELECT>

I see what you are getting at with the foreach loop but I cannot get it to work. I have also tried a while loop to no avail.

<SELECT NAME="lstCategory" SIZE="5" MULTIPLE>
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($category)){

echo "<option value=";
echo $row["id"];

while($rows = mysql_fetch_array($selCat)){

if($row["id"] == $rows["category"]){
echo " SELECTED";
}

}

echo ">";
echo $row["catName"];
}
</SELECT>

This does not work and I do not know why. From what I can tell the inner while loop only runs the first time through the outer loop.

I am losing my mind over this, I know it cannot be this hard. I am new to PHP but I have done this logic in other languages and made it work.

On another note, I had asked the question before to this forum about echo and print and the answer I got was that echo was faster, that is why I use it. What do you mean echo is lower level?

Thanks..