drop-down error

TravisB

I am trying to create a drop-down list that will allow the user to select an hour, 1-12. It works fine if I comment out the "if ($hour_count = $start_hours){echo " selected";}" line.

$hour_count = 1;
            while ($hour_count < 13)
            {
              echo "<option value=\"" . $hour_count . "\"";
              if ($hour_count = $start_hours){echo " selected";}
              echo ">" . $hour_count . "</option>";
              $hour_count++;
            }

This is what I get with all the lines above:

<option value="1" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>
<option value="10" selected="selected">9</option>

It just keeps repeating. Where am I going wrong?

thorpe

== is a comparison operator, not =

Nugen

The first thing I notice is:
if ($hour_count = $start_hours)

it should be

if ($hour_count == $start_hours)

= sets a value
== checks to see if two values are equal and returns a boolean (true, false)

TravisB

Thanks. I should have known that.

Najjar

I will add that in the dropdown it's either selected or nothing
don't use selected="selected"
Not correct:
<option value="1" selected="selected">9</option>
Correct:
<option value="1" selected>9</option>

TravisB

That selected code is confusing me. If you look at the PHP code to generate the <option> tags, you will see that I am only printing the word selected, not selected="selected". I will try changing the = and see if that changes anything.

TravisB

Changing the = to == did fix the problem. Thanks again.

Weedpacket

Najjar wrote:
I will add that in the dropdown it's either selected or nothing
don't use selected="selected"
Not correct:
<option value="1" selected="selected">9</option>
Correct:
<option value="1" selected>9</option>

Only if this isn't XHTML. XHTML requires that all attributes have values. HTML will ignore values given for attributes that don't have them, so it doesn't hurt there, either.
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#h-4.5
Time to catch up with the 21st century.

Najjar

Thanks for the info.