dynamic dropdown list

izbryte

Hi!

I need help with an option list. When the user selects their state from a dropdown list, I need different form elements to be shown. For example, if they are from New Mexico, I need to display a text box asking for their Social. Whereas if they are from Arkansaw, I need one that asks for their birth date and so on...

Can anyone help me?

devinemke

a very basic example:

<?php
$states = array(
'New Mexico' => 'social security',
'Arkansas' => 'date of birth'
);

echo '
<form action="" method="POST">
<select name="state">
';

foreach ($states as $key => $value)
{
	echo '<option';
	if (isset($_POST['state']) && $_POST['state'] == $key) {echo ' selected';}
	echo '>' . $key . '</option>';
}

echo '
</select>
<br>
';

if (isset($_POST['state']))
{
	echo $states[$_POST['state']] . ': <input type="text" name="' . $states[$_POST['state']] . '">';
}

echo '
<br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit">
</form>
';
?>

krotkruton

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but...

Have one page with the drop down menu form that submits a state to the next page... then the next page would be

<?
$state = $_POST['state'];

if ($state == 'Arkansas') {
    $message = "<form blah blah... put all your html form info in here> and anything else
    that you might want to output just like you would in any page </form>";
}
elseif ($state == 'Alabama') {
    $message = "  etc   ";
}
.
.
.
?>
...
<Body> //and all that stuff
...
<? echo $message; ?>
...

So that's not the best example, and a case switch would look cleaner and work faster than if/elseif's, but it gets the point across, I think.

Basically you set the $message variable equal to whatever you want the form and html to be and then echo that in your page...

that doesn't seem to be as clear as it is in my head, so if you want more explanation I'd be happy to provide it, along with an example of doing it from a section of my web page