Irritating error message

[Tezread]

Im moving onto being a newbie now but ive come across an error message that im not sure how to deal with:

Parse error: parse error, unexpected '\"', expecting ',' or ';' in /disk1/home3/mindseye/public_html/notts_quality/info_resource/quality_info_form_updatev4.php on line 49

here is my code. the idea is you select a quality name from the drop down box and voila- the prepopulated form displays- this approach works using a simple text field btw.

<?php
if (!isset ($_POST['submit'])) 
{ 
    echo ' 
    <form action="' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '" method="POST"> 
      <select name="quality_name"> 
$sql = "SELECT quality_name FROM quality_info"; 

$result = mysql_query($sql, $connection) or die(mysql_error()); 
echo $result."=result<br>"; 

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



  </select>
</form> 
'; 
}
?>

[bradgrafelman]

Well, the error message is basically telling you what the problem is... but I s'pose I can show you where it is...

      <select name="quality_name"> 
$sql = "SELECT quality_name FROM quality_info"; 

[Tezread]

bradgrafelman wrote:

Well, the error message is basically telling you what the problem is... but I s'pose I can show you where it is...

      <select name="quality_name"> 
$sql = "SELECT quality_name FROM quality_info"; 

???? sorry- im not sure what you are getting at here. im using the same code as another example I tried in the past

[bradgrafelman]

I highly doubt that this is the same code.

You start an echo statement, but then you never close it and just go right into some PHP code... which you can't do.

    echo ' 
    <form action="' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '" method="POST"> 
      <select name="quality_name">'; 
$sql = "SELECT quality_name FROM quality_info"; 

etc.

[Tezread]

forgive me for being a dumb blond but I have tried correcting the error by deploying an ' after echo statements and ensuring they are completed using ; but it still is not happening. I understand the principles you are explaining but im having difficulty solving the problem in hand

here is what I have so far

<?php
if (!isset ($_POST['submit'])) 
{ 
    echo ' 
    <form action="' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '" method="POST"> 
    quality name: <select name="quality_name"> 
	$sql = "SELECT quality_name FROM quality_info"'; 

$result = mysql_query($sql, $connection) or die(mysql_error()); 
echo $result."=result<br>"; 

while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) 
{ 
   echo '"<option value='".$row['quality_name']."'</option>\"; 
} 
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="find"> 
    </form> 
    '; 
}
?>

im so close it hurts!

[laserlight]

Look at the echo in the while loop. This forum's PHP syntax highlighter shows you that something is wrong.

[Tezread]

sorry guys - i see where im going wrong but the attempts ive made to correct it are not working

[laserlight]

Here's what I tried to correct, take a close look:

<?php
if (!isset ($_POST['submit']))
{
	echo '<form action="' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '" method="POST">'
		. 'quality name: <select name="quality_name">' . "\n";

$sql = "SELECT quality_name FROM quality_info";

$result = mysql_query($sql, $connection)
	OR die(mysql_error());

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
	echo '<option value="' . $row['quality_name'] . '">'
		. $row['quality_name'] . "</option>\n";
}

echo '</select><input type="submit" name="submit" value="find" /></form>';
}
?>

[bradgrafelman]

Basically, what laserlight did was make sure that the only thing inside the quoted echo strings is the HTML data you want outputted; NOT a single character of PHP code.

In this part of your attempted correction above:

    echo ' 
    <form action="' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '" method="POST"> 
    quality name: <select name="quality_name"> 
    $sql = "SELECT quality_name FROM quality_info"'; 

you should note that the $sql variable is inside the echo statement, so instead of actually carrying out what you're trying to tell PHP, it's instead trying to output it. To correct that bit, all laserlight did was to end the echo statement before any PHP code so that the only thing outputted, or echoed, to the browser is the HTML data, like so:

    echo ' 
    <form action="' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . '" method="POST"> 
    quality name: <select name="quality_name">';
    $sql = "SELECT quality_name FROM quality_info"; 

Note the difference in the placement of the quotes for the echo statement and even the color-coding.