[RESOLVED] dynamic population of dropdown list

spiritssight

Hello,

Can any one give me some tips on populating a dropdown list?

I seen a easy way of doing it a while ago but can not find it any more?

here is what I have:

<label for="fc">Foundation Code: </label>
<select title="Please choose Foundation Code" name="fc" id="fc">
<?PHP
$query_s = "SELECT * FROM foundation_codes";
$result_s = mysql_query($query_s);
$record=mysql_fetch_array($result_s)

$options="";

while ($record)
{
    $code=$record["f_code"];
    $desc=$record["f_description"];
    $options="<option value=\"$code\">".$desc."</option>;
}
?>
</select>

This code gives me no error but also does not put any thing in the dropdown form field, also how can I have the value selected that is in the database $fc is the var from the database to say which foundation code for that org

Thanks ahead of time.

Sincerely,
Christopher

Gigantor

hey buddy

im at work at the moment so im not able to 100% check my answers here, but i think your problem with the blank results is due to your use of

myql_fetch_array - this returns an array indexed numerically. if you modify your line to say

$record=mysql_fetch_array($result_s, MYSQL_ASSOC);

this will make the array associative, indexed by the field name. so your references to $record[fieldname] will be valid.

you could also use mysql_fetch_assoc($result)

I might be wrong but give that a bash.

For the second part of your query, you need to set the selected option.

Its a bit hard to give you an example using your scenario because im not quite sure what youre page is for, but setting

will tell the browser to use that value as preselected option when the form loads.

you might need to loop through your above sql result array to match with the desired result, and when you find it, set it as selected, and set the others as options...

I have done the same thing in my current project just dont have the code handy 🙂

NogDog

You need to move the start of the while loop up a bit:

<?PHP
$query_s = "SELECT * FROM foundation_codes";
$result_s = mysql_query($query_s);
while($record=mysql_fetch_array($result_s))
{
    $code=$record["f_code"];
    $desc=$record["f_description"];
    echo "<option value=\"$code\">$desc</option>\n";
}
?>

spiritssight

Ok, I got one part to work but now I am trying to get the selected part to work when doing the select it does not appear to be selecting it as the one that shows up on the screen is the first one. any help would be great!

the code is:

$query_s = "SELECT * FROM foundation_codes";
$result_s = mysql_query($query_s);

echo '
$query_s = "SELECT * FROM foundation_codes";
$result_s = mysql_query($query_s);

echo '
<label for="fc">Foundation Code: </label>
<select title="Please choose Foundation Code" name="fc" id="fc" size="1" width="25">
';
while($record = mysql_fetch_assoc($result_s))
{
$code = $record['f_code'];
$desc = $record['f_description'];

echo "<option";
if($code == $fc) {echo "selected";}
echo " value=\"". $code ."\">". $desc ."</option>";
}
echo '
</select>

Sincerely,
Christopher

spiritssight

It now works!!!

If there is a better way write this piece of code please say so I would be grateful!

here is the code for any one that wants to see it:

$query_s = "SELECT * FROM foundation_codes";
$result_s = mysql_query($query_s);

echo '
<label for="fc">Foundation Code: </label>
<select title="Please choose Foundation Code" name="fc" id="fc" size="1" width="25">
';
while($record = mysql_fetch_assoc($result_s))
{
$code = $record['f_code'];
$desc = $record['f_description'];
echo "<option value=\"". $code ."\""; if($code == $fc) {echo " selected=\"selected\"";} echo ">". $desc ."</option>\n";
}
echo '
</select>

Sincerely,
Christopher

Gigantor

hey spiritsight - i like you am a beginner to proper php, but its good that you have a project to inspire the learning

a few things i wish i'd read about and learned from the get go :

PEAR-DB
PEAR-Quickforms
PHP security(www.phpsecurity.org) - if the app is a web app

these 3 can help to apply 'best practices'

your code is ok from what I can tell, but what happens if you have multiple select boxes on your script, each one requiring a database connection, it gets messy.

abstracting common tasks into functions (in a seperate included file?) can make things much easier to follow, easier to look back on when you modify it down the track, and easier to change

abstracting database interaction using PEAR-DB is also good if you ever change databases etc, it has error checking, and has alot of common functions already written

abstracting the HTML/Form content (or at least making it neater) using Quickforms was a godsend, the best part being the built in validation functions

theres plenty of ways to skin a cat, but if it bugs you seeing HTML mixed in with your PHP like it does me, those packages might help make it cleaner

then again im just a newb

spiritssight

Thanks for your respone! I am going to do a lot of clean up once I have the basic stuff running, I got to add alot of stuff like cleaning the input and all of that stuff but right now I am geting the fundation of the code in place (the very basic)

Thanks again
Christopher