Reading MySQL field data into Option list - why doesn't it work?

tobey

I can read, submit and delete from databases fine, but I just wanted to read field data into a select/option box. I've tried everything I can think of, but still no luck.

I will be so gratefull if anyone could point out my probably simple mistake ...

<?php
$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "root");
mysql_select_db("customers",$db);
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM products",$db);
$columns = mysql_num_fields($result);

try filling list box ...

for ($i = 0; $i < $columns; $i++)
{

echo mysql_result($result, $i, 'name');

echo "<form>";
echo "<select name = '\name\'>";
echo "<option value =",
mysql_result($result, $i, 'name'),"\name>";
echo "</option>";
}
echo "</select></form>";

what went wrong?

test data read correctly ... yep!

for ($i = 0; $i < $columns; $i++)
{
echo mysql_result($result, $i, 'name');
echo "<br>";
}
?>

I'm sure I'm not the only one to come accross this, and I hope the answer helps others too.
😕

LordShryku

Seems like you're doing a whole lot of work you don't need to. Here's what I would do.

<?php
$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "root");
      mysql_select_db("customers",$db);
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM products");
if(mysql_num_row($result)>0) {
   echo "<form>
         <select name=\"name\">";
   while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result) {
      echo "<option value=\"".$row['name']."\">".$row['name']."</option>";
   }
   echo "</select>
         </form>";
}
?>

tobey

Thanx for the help.

I can see why it should work, but the sourcecode supplied doesn't seem to.

It seems to be failing on -

while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result) {

is this because it expects $row to be defined somewhere?

I'm still not entriely sure why my version didn't work either. I didn't read the values into an array, but that didn't stop me being able to output them to screen without a problem.

LordShryku

No, just left out a paren. Change it to

while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

tobey

thats great! thanks for all the help. it made all the difference in the world!

BTW, there was another typing error -
mysql_num_row
should read
mysql_num_rows

LordShryku

Yeah, most of the code I post here should be taken with a grain of salt. I usually don't test it...