select box item is being selected when I don't want it to!

daveyjay

Hi all...I am new here and fairly new at PHP.

I have a select box that is populated with the contents of a text file. (it is a list of countries)

The problem is that when the page with all the form data is sent to my validate php script, the first entry in the select box is always chosen, even if I haven't 'clicked' to select an entry....so the first country in the text file (United States) automatically gets selected.

I want to display a message that states "please go back and select a country" when the user hasn't explicitly clicked on what selection they want, rather than have it just default to the first item in the list.

I tried putting a blank line in the first line of the text file and checking for that but that doesn't seem to work either.

So, the first way I tried it (with US being the very first entry in the text file) is like this:

if(!$_POST['country'])
{
echo "You didn't select a country. Please press the Back Button and try again";

that doesn't work because US is selected by default.

After putting a blank line (just 1 enter keystroke - no spaces) in the text file I tried it this way:

if($_POST['country'] == "" )
{
echo "You didn't select a country. Please press the Back Button and try again";

Neither way is working. Can anybody help me with this?

thanks

lanjoky

Post the code so we can see exactly what the select is doing and what your php code is doing with it .... thanks

batman

You can try it two ways:

1). Make the first option say 'Choose One'. Or something similar.

Then use this:

$country = $_POST['country'];
if($country == "Choose One")
{
echo "You did not choose a country. Please hit back and choose one.";
}

If that doesn't work try this:

1). Make the first option say 'Choose One'. Or something similar.

then use:

$country = $_POST['country'];
if($country == "0")
{
echo "You did not choose a country. Please hit back and choose one.";
}

Hope one of those works for you,
-Blake

daveyjay

thanks guys...

the only thing is, I don't want to have the first entry displayed..(like choose 1) for example. (This is for a class assignment and you have to make it look like the printout)

Also, I tried the second way (checking if == 0) but that doesn't work either..

Here is my code for the select box:

<form method = "post" action = "validate_survey.php">

<?php
$arrayName = file("countries.txt");
$num_elements = count($arrayName);
echo "<select name = 'country' size = '1'>";
for($index = 0; $index < $num_elements; $index++)
{
echo "<option value = '$arrayName[$index]'>$arrayName[$index]</option>";
}
echo "</select>";
?>

This part works fine...

Here is the code to check if the user selected a country:

if(!$_POST['country'])
{
echo "<b><h3>You didn't select a country. Please press the Back Button and try again.<br></b></h3>";

}

If you open up 'countries.txt' in notepad, the first few entries look like this: (first entry is a blank line)

United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Afghanistan
Albania

batman

Any url I can see?

daveyjay

http://daveyjay.no-ip.com/index.php

ereptur

Then setup an option like this
<option value="none">&nbsp;</option>

This should give you a blank line at the top, but when the form is submitted with this the passed value will be none. Then you can test for "none" on the validation page.

werkkrew

Well, in reality, there shouldnt be the option of an empty choice, make it like say "None" or "Dont Specify" or something...but is the value getting passed correctly even if you do select one?

daveyjay

well..I figured it out...thanks guys...put in a blank space as an option BEFORE i loaded the contents of the text file into the select box...like this:

<?php
$arrayName = file("countries.txt");
$num_elements = count($arrayName);
echo "<select name = 'country' size = '1'>";

                                // this is the line that made it work here...
                                echo "<option value=' '></option>";




			for($index = 0; $index < $num_elements; $index++)
			{
				echo "<option value = '$arrayName[$index]'>$arrayName[$index]</option>"; 
			}
			echo "</select>";
		?>

then to check if nothing was selected in the validation script...

if($_POST['country']==' ')
{
	echo "You didn't select a country. Please press the Back Button and try again.<br>";

}

Orjan

One way of doing it is to ad an <option>-tag hardcoded befire you read out from the textfile wihich has "empty" as value and then you can check if choosen is "empty"