Dynamically getting default values in "select" boxes?

[amycrystal123]

Hi,

Hope you can just throw some light into this problem as I have been breaking my head thinking of a solution.

I have stored the user's personal information in my MySql database, which includes, name and DOB and other information. The date of birth (DO😎, I had used 2 select boxes for Month and Day and one text box for year.

Now, I am making the user update his profile and when the page is invoked, I get the year value in text. But, how I can dynamically change the "select box" value as per the database value (for example, month: 05 and day: 21). I hope you get my question. When the user loads the "update" page, he gets all his information popped from the database on the page. Right now, I cannot make the default values for the "select" boxes point to the database values.

Awaiting your reply.

Thanks again.

Amy.

[weevil]

If you are dynamically generating the options in your select from a lookup table, you compare each value ($value) to the value in the row being updated and print selected for that row.

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array ($result))
  {
   if ($value == $row[0])
   {
    $selected = "selected";
   }
    else
   {
    $selected = "";
   }
   print "\n\t<option value=\"$row[0]\" $selected>$row[1]</option>";
  }

[bastien]

use an array, place all data that normally sits in the box into an array and then use a simple if/then to check

$months=array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec");

$days=array(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31);

//get the data from the db 
//assign values to 
// $mth and $date respectively

//ex $mth=5 and $date=21

//then create a loop for the array(s) and run the compare

//create the table row for the date information
echo "<tr><td><select name=\"DOB_month\">";

for ($x=1;$x<13;$x++){

 if ($mth==$x){

     echo "<option value=\"$x\" selected >$month";

 }else{

     echo "<option value=\"$x\" >$month";

 }//end if

}//end for   

//create the date portion
//create the table row for the date information
echo "<tr><td><select name=\"DOB_day\">";

for ($x=1;$x<32;$x++){

 if ($date==$x){

     echo "<option value=\"$x\" selected >$X";

 }else{

     echo "<option value=\"$x\" >$x";

 }//end if

}//end for   

[amycrystal123]

Guys,
Thanks so much for your replies.. I appreciate your help. Thank you!
Amy.

[Shrike]

Only good if you like to use PHP embedded in HTML, which I don't

$filestring = "<select id=\"myselect\"><option value=\"1\" selected>1</option>\n<option value=\"2\">2</option></select>"; // String containing the HTML (including a select field)
$valuetocheckfor = 2;

// Get rid of any existing 'selected' attributes (so the next regexp isn't screwed)
$filestring = preg_replace("/(<option.*?)\\sselected(.*?>)/si", "$1$2", $filestring);

// Add 'selected' attribute to the relevant option
$filestring = preg_replace("/(<select id=\"myselect\".*?>.*?)(<option value=\"".$valuetocheckfor."\".*?)(>.*?<\/select>)/si", "$1$2 selected$3", $filestring);

print $filestring;

You might want to tighten the regexp patterns (less of the evil .*?) but it's a quick and dirty example 🙂