Is it possible to use a dropdown menu to perform queries?

[badgoat]

Hello!

I am not sure how to explain it better... I have a list of contacts which are sorted by name. I was hoping to create a dropdown menu in which someone can sort the list of contacts by office, city, state, and contact type.

Is this possible? (I am sure it is, but I am not sure what the concept is called so I may research how to do it)

[SargeZT]

Well, two ways to do it. The dropdown box is simple. Just a dropdown form that has the options. The PHP script is easy to write one way, not so easy to write the other way. the first way is if your contacts are inside of a database. Then, you simply sort by the field they clicked on, and you display your results in whatever way you want.

But, if your data is not in a database, but instead in a text file, XML file, or anything else, you'll probably have to create a quick little sorting algorithm. You can do this simply with a foreach and the sort() function.

[cretaceous]

you want something like this I think:

build the dropdown from the db:

<?php
$sql="SELECT * FROM manu WHERE manuid>=1 ORDER BY manuname";
$result = mysql_query($sql) or $error.=(mysql_error());

}
$dd_manu="";
while ($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $mid=$row["manuid"];
    $mname=$row["manuname"];
    if ($pmanu==$mid)
    {
     $dd_manu.="<OPTION VALUE=\"$mid\" SELECTED>".$mname."</OPTION>";
    }   else {
    $dd_manu.="<OPTION VALUE=\"$mid\">".$mname."</OPTION>";
     }
}
?>

show it on the page like this:

<b>Manufacturer: </b> <select  onChange='submit()' name='pmanu' id='pmanu' ><OPTION VALUE=0>Choose..<?php echo $dd_manu; ?></SELECT>

this bit : onChange='submit()'

is javascript and will submit the page whenever the dropdown is used - leave it out and put in a Submit button if you prefer (or have both)

[badgoat]

Thank you kindly! Looking into incorporating now. 🙂