populating a drop down list with php

climberusa

HI,
I am trying to get a drop down list to populate vbia php. What I have a is a script that allows a airline/user to enter airfare and price for tickets. It dumps them into a database and then allows the user to view/delete/add. I want the user to be able to edit the airfare. I have a drop down list that is set as a variable $ticket_from, $ticket_to. The list contains around 400 cities. When the user clicks 'edit' I have the price population but no the drop down list. How do you go about something like that? I have this right now:

$ticket_from = '<select name="ticket_from"><OPTION value="0">Select One</OPTION>
				   <OPTION value="ADK" SIZE="SMALL">ADAK ISLAND(ADK)</OPTION>
				  <OPTION  VALUE="AKK" SIZE="SMALL">AKHIOK(AKK)</OPTION>
				  <OPTION  VALUE="KKI" SIZE="SMALL">AKIACHAK(KKI)</OPTION>
				  <OPTION  VALUE="AKI" SIZE="SMALL">AKIAK (AKI)</OPTION>
				  <OPTION  VALUE="KQA" SIZE="SMALL">AKUTAN (KQA)</OPTION>.....etc

and was given this to add into the option list:

<? echo ($ticket_from == "ADK") ? ' selected' : ''; ?>

I've tried adding this into the drop down/select list but I get a parse error. I guess I'm not sure how to add that into the select option. Any ideas?

yinrunning

Well, it look like at the moment you have a static html form dropdown list inside of a php variable, $ticket_from. What you want if I understand correctly is a list of dropdown entries that are populated dynamically by php code? that would require building a list entity (an array() or a database query), and the encasing each piece of data returned in the html. Something like:

$cities = array("Omaha", "Cleveland', "Detroit");

$i=0;
while ($i < count($cities)) {

echo '<input value="'.$cities.'">';

$i++;
}

would return the html:

<input value="Omaha"><input value="Cleveland"><input value="Detroit">

because you're stepping through the list, one item at a time.

Something along those lines, once again hopefull from a database, not an array(). But from your question, it's hard to tell where you're getting your data from, or how it fits into the program. Could you be more specific?

climberusa

Yes, right now my static html form is in a variable in an include file. It contains roughly 400 options. On my 'view fares' page, a user has the option to add new, delete or edit the current fares they have entered. The edit function I haven't configured yet. All of the fares are stored in a database. What I need is when the user clicks 'edit' they are taken to the edit page and for the fare to prepopulate the 'ticket_from' and 'ticket_to' drop down boxes based on the fare they are changing, as well as the ticket price in the text box.

So I don't really need the whole drop down list generated dynamically, just need the fares to prepopulate for editing so the user doesn't have to select the cities again.

yinrunning

Oh, ok. So you don't need a loop at all. Btw, I think that "(test something) ? 'then something' : 'then something';" syntax is a way to write an if statement. I never use it, can't quite remember.)

You just need to :

<input type="select"(or whatever for dropdowns)> (or you could ehco""; that)

then:

echo $ticket_from; (your <option> list)

</input>

or however you put that in html. sorry, can't remember right now. Usually just have Dreamweaver do it. Wow, I'm spacy today, huh? 😃

The basic setup as I understand what you're doing is to click on the fare, then pass the fare info to editpage.php via url. I posted an example script for that here if you need to do it on the fly. Probably not, since you're going php to php.

editpage, you'd include() your option lists, then pull the fare info or whatever you need with $GET[] or $REQUEST[], and output the right city list based on that info. (if ($_GET["fare"] == "something") {echo $some_city_list;}, etc.)

The best way to do it is to build an example edit system statically (make sure the dropdowns work, etc.), then figure out which parts need to be dynamic and write logic code appropriately. Pull those HTML chunks into your php and go from there.

Does that help any?

climberusa

I'll get to work and see if I can get that to work. Thanks for your help, I'll let you know how it goes.

Trilogen

You could try an all javascript approach.

http://www.quirksmode.org/js/options.html

Roger_Ramjet

The basic process for populating a dropdown is this

<select name="destination" tabindex="4">
	<option value="notset">- select a destination -</option>
<?

$sql = "SELECT DISTINCT city FROM  cities ORDER BY city";
$cities = mysql_query($sql) or die($sql . '<br />' . mysql_error());
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($cities)) {
		echo '<option value="' . $row['city'] . '">' . $row['city']  . '</option>';
	}
?>
</select>

chirilageorgesb

I already populated the drop down list with items but I have two of them and need to link them toghether. So if I select the third option from the first I also select the third option from the second list.
this would be sth like
list1.selected == SQL(select from tablex where value_column2=list2.value)
and
list2.selected == SQL(select from tablex where value_column1=list1.value)
NOTICE. The above writen is not a code segment only an ideea of what I want

I want the user to be able to chose wich list he uses.

Roger_Ramjet

EH???

Do you mean that when the user selects an option in list 1, the SAME option will be selected in list 2?

What I guess you mean is that you have a ROUTE and that route number is the value for the option, and one list shows start of route, and other list shows end of route.

I would use javascript to make the two lists match myself.