Dynamic dropdown box populated twice even using DISTINCT in SQL query

[Johny7126]

Hi, I am using MySQL and PHP to populate/make a dropdown box from a database.

Problem is that the dropdown box has the same entries twice.

Please suggest the cause of this, someone.

This is my code:

<?php

									$dealer_list = $connector->query("SELECT DISTINCT shop_region FROM dealers ORDER BY shop_region");									

									echo "<form name='dropdown_region' method='POST'>";										
									echo "<select name='county' value=''>";
									echo "<option value=''>Please Select</option>";

									while($county = mysql_fetch_array($dealer_list))
									{
										$shop_region = $county['shop_region'];

										echo "<option value='$shop_region'>".ucwords(strtolower($county[shop_region]))."</option>";
									}

									echo "</select>";
									?>

Cheers

[Johny7126]

I have figured out the reason for the regions appearing twice:

Some of the regions in the DB have a space infront of them therefore making 2 records i.e:

"dorset"
" dorset"

So is there a way to get round this in SQL and not change the whole DB.

I know this is more MySQL than PHP but surely someone knows how to strip white space characters from fields in an SQL query.

Please help.

Cheers