Populating a SELECT/Drop Down Box

[space1]

I have a SELECT box. My question is..how do I populate the Select box with data from the database? I can do it with the textareas and input boxes, but not sure how to do it with a Select box.

The user's options are Tentative, Yes or No. I'd like to populate the Select Box with the value stored in the database and then also allow the user to change the value to one of the other two options if they'd like.

Thank you!

Here is it:
<SELECT name='Active' >
<OPTION >Tentative
<OPTION>Yes
<OPTION>No
</select>

[barand]

You need to test the value stored in the database against each of the options and mark matching one as selected. I find it easier to use a function to do it.

function activeOptions($dbOption) {
   $options = array('Tentative', 'Yes', 'No');
   foreach ($options as $opt) {
        echo "<option value=\"$opt\"  "
        if ($opt == $dbOption) echo "selected" ;
        echo " > $opt </option>"
   }

}

<select name="Active">
<?= activeOptions($row['active']) ?> // assume active is db fieldname
</select>

hth

[space1]

Thanks for your help! I think that I almost got it. I'm just having trouble on the format for the function call. I have it in a printf statement which is confusing me. How exactly would you write the function call?
I appreciate your help!

Function Call Section (my question):
printf("<tr bgcolor='#F5F5DC'>

<td>ACTIVE EVENT:
<select name='Active'>" . pActiveOptions($sActive) . "</select>

The Function:
function pActiveOptions($dbOption)
{
$options = array('Tentative', 'Yes', 'No');
foreach ($options as $opt)
{
echo "<option value=\"$opt\" ";
if ($opt == $dbOption)
{
echo "selected" ;
}
echo ">$opt";
}
}

[barand]

First, my apologies - I should not have put the '=' in

<?= activeOptions($row['active']) ?>

If you want to call it from within a printf call, rewrite the function to return a string result as follows

function pActiveOptions($dbOption) {
   $options = array('Tentative', 'Yes', 'No');
   $result = '';   

   foreach ($options as $opt) {
        $result .= "<option value=\"$opt\"  "
        if ($opt == $dbOption) $result .= " selected " ;
        $result .= " > $opt </option>" ;
   }
   return $result;

}

Now you can call it with

printf ("<select name='Active'> %s </select> " , pActiveOptions($sActive) );