Problem populating a listbox

klycette

Users on my site can choose multiple categories for the posts that they make and can also modify those choices from within their account. I've included the code that I'm using to populate the listbox based on what choices are stored in the database for them. The problem that I'm having is that if "Accounting" is the only selection made, it's not coming back as selected in the listbox. When it's one of several choices stored in the database, it comes back as highlighted as it should. I've checked & it is being properly stored in the database; it just doesn't get highlighted in the listbox when its the only choice. I'm thinking that it might be because its the first item in the listbox, but I'm really not sure. Can anyone see what's wrong?

          <td align="left" valign="top"><select name="categories[]" size="6" multiple id="categories">
              <option value="Accounting"<?php mysql_data_seek($cat_result, 0); do {if ("Accounting" == $cat_row['category']) {echo "SELECTED";}} while ($cat_row = mysql_fetch_array($cat_result)); ?>>Accounting</option>
              <option value="Administrative Support"<?php mysql_data_seek($cat_result, 0); do {if ("Administrative Support" == $cat_row['category']) {echo "SELECTED";}} while ($cat_row = mysql_fetch_array($cat_result)); ?>>Administrative Support</option>
              <option value="Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations"<?php mysql_data_seek($cat_result, 0); do {if ("Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations" == $cat_row['category']) {echo "SELECTED";}} while ($cat_row = mysql_fetch_array($cat_result)); ?>>Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations</option>

onion2k

Thats the weirdest way of populating a dropdown box I've ever seen..

while ($cat_row = mysql_fetch_array($cat_result)) {
$cat[] = $cat_row['category'];
}

echo "<option value=\"Accounting\"".((in_array($cat,"Accounting"))?" selected":"")."\">Accounting</option>";
echo "<option value=\"Administrative Support\"".(in_array($cat,"Administrative Support"))?" selected":"")."\">Administrative Support</option>";
echo "<option value=\"Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations\"".(in_array($cat,"Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations")?" selected":"")."\">Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations</option>";

Make an array of the catagories, and check each one against it. Might want to add a check in to see in the array exists, coz if theres no catagories selected it'll throw an error.

klycette

I'm not populating the listbox via php; it's populated by html. The php code is just looking into the database and highlighting the option if it exists in the database. I got this method somewhere online and it works for me, so I don't want to change it. Given this method, can you see why I would be getting this result?

onion2k

Originally posted by klycette
I got this method somewhere online and it works for me...

No it doesn't. You're posting here because of it...

klycette

I'm posting here to try to get some input as to why it doesn't work in this one case. Otherwise it works perfectly. I appreciate the alternate method, but I wanted to know if anyone can determine why it doesn't work under these circumstances.