Long Lists for Dropdowns

kbrick

What's a good way to handle long drop-down lists? Calling from another table? For example, if I need one of my user-input dropdown lists to be COUNTRY, it now goes like this:

           <td vAlign=center noWrap align=right height=32>
              <strong>Country:</strong></td>
            <td vAlign=center height=32><select name=scountry
            <option value selected=$_POST[scountry]>
            <option value=$_POST[scountry]>$_POST[scountry]</option>

<OPTION value='Algeria'>Algeria</OPTION>
<OPTION value='Andorra'>Andorra</OPTION>
<OPTION value='Anguilla'>Anguilla</OPTION>
<OPTION value='Antigua And Barbudas'>Antigua And
Barbudas</OPTION>
.
.
.
...and there are hundreds of lines. Is there a way to put the countries into a different table and then call them into this field?

Thanks.

bpat1434

Yes. Just put the countries in their own table, and connect as you normally would. Then just grab all the values from them, and write them to a variable. Then print the variable as the options:

<?php

// Database Connection Settings Here
// Omitted for space

$query = "SELECT * FROM `table_countries` ORDER BY Country ASC";
$result = mysql_query($query);

$options = "";

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
    options .= "<option value=\"".$row['Country']."\">".$row['Country']."</option>\n";
}

// Run through whatever other code you need

?>
<html>
<!-- Basic HTML Page information. -->
<select name="scountry">
    <?php echo $options; ?>
</select>

<!-- Other HTML Page code -->

Now, that will output the following HTML:

<select name="scountry">
<option value="Country">Country</option>
<option value="Country2">Country2</option>
<option value="Country3">Country3</option>
</select>

That would repeat for as many values as you have.

~Brett

kbrick

Wow!!! I'm glad I asked. You're so awesome...thank you!!