[RESOLVED] Autopopulating drop downs change to nothing

matthewst

I have a form that autopopulates and allows user to make changes where necessary. In this form are some drop down menus (hardcoded on the page). All the selections (50 states for example) are there. If I select a state it will then post to the database. If I don't select a state and just leave it as the previously selected state (not change the selection already made by a user) it puts a blank in the database.

Examples:
The <?="$rest_state_pr"?> will pull the state the user selected previously. If I change the slelection it saves the new selection, but if I leave it as the "default" It puts a blank in the database.

Drop Down:

<td><select name="rest_state_pr" class="formTextbox" value="<?="$rest_state_pr"?>">
										<option value=""><?="$rest_state_pr"?></option>
										<option value="Alabama">Alabama</option>
										<option value="Alaska">Alaska</option>
										<option value="Arizona">Arizona</option>
										<option value="Arkansas">Arkansas</option>
										<option value="California">California</option>										                         

<option value="Clorado">Colorado</option>

</select></td>

Form and Query:

<form name="FormName" action="table_order_handler.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post">

<?php
$query="SELECT * FROM abc_tables WHERE table_id=$table_id";
$result=mysql_query($query);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
$rest_state_pr = $row['rest_state_pr']
}
?>

Handler:

<?php
$query_update="UPDATE abc_tables SET rest_state_pr='$rest_state_pr' WHERE table_id='$table_id'";

mysql_query($query_update) or die(mysql_error());

stolzyboy

if you view source and look for that <option> that is prepopulated with the selection, can you see the result?

basically, are you sure the $rest_state_pr variable is there?

matthewst

hmmm....
When I view source:

<td width="150">State/Province</td>
<td><select name="rest_state_pr" class="formTextbox" value="">
<option value=""></option>

stolzyboy

so, there ya go... the variable isn't being set...

can you verify that your shorthand echos are working correctly?

how is the variable coming from the previous area?

jdiver

In this code:

$query="SELECT * FROM abc_tables WHERE table_id=$table_id";
$result=mysql_query($query);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
$rest_state_pr = $row['rest_state_pr']
}

echo out the $rest_state_pr variable and see if it has a value.

echo "rest_state_pr = $rest_state_pr";

I think the issue could be that you have multiple entries in the database that match the $table_id, and it's pulling blank entries. You're looping through the results when, if I'm understanding it correctly, there should be only one entry per $table_id. You could try this:

$query="SELECT * FROM abc_tables WHERE table_id=$table_id AND rest_state_pr != '' LIMIT 0,1";
$result=mysql_query($query);
$row = mysql_fetch_row($result);
$rest_state_pr = $row['rest_state_pr'];

matthewst

I had to set the "default" (selection pulled from the database) as selected.

Changed this:

<option value=""><?="$rest_state_pr"?></option>

To this:

<option value="<?php echo $rest_state_pr; ?>" selected><?php echo $rest_state_pr; ?>

Thanks for the help.