Populating Option field from a php file

[acctman]

Hi I have a countries and states php file that holds the abbrev. and names for states and countries. can someone assist me with creating an html <option> field to display the Country names in and as a value the countries abbrev. and the same would apply to the States.
Countries:
<OPTION value="US">United States</OPTION>

States:
<OPTION value="AL">Alabama</OPTION>

Also another question to save from having to post twice. once the values are saved into my database m_state and m_country how can I grab the full state/country name after i do a query? So i a user has m_state = AL and m_country = US how can i access the countries_states.php and echo/print Alabama and United States

thanks in advance

countries_states.php

<?php 
$countries['AD'] = array(name => 'Andorra', lat => 42, lon => 1); 
$countries['AE'] = array(name => 'United Arab Emirates', lat => 24, lon => 54); 
$countries['AF'] = array(name => 'Afghanistan', lat => 34, lon => 69); 
// ... more shorten 

//sort countries alphabetically 
function sortby($a, $b) { 
if ($a[name] == 'United States') return -1; 
if ($a[name] == $b[name]) return 0; 
return ($a[name] > $b[name]) ? -1 : 1; 
} 

uasort($countries,"sortby"); 
$countries['US'] = array(name => 'United States', lat => 39, lon => -93, z => 3); 
$countries = array_reverse($countries, true); 

$states['US']['AL'] = 'Alabama'; 
$states['US']['AK'] = 'Alaska'; 
$states['US']['AZ'] = 'Arizona'; 

// ... more shorten 
?> 

[NogDog]

The basic process is to use a foreach loop, something like:

<select name='country'>
<?php
foreach($countries as $key => $value)
{
   echo "<option value='$key'>{$value['name']}</option>\n";
}
?>
</select>

[sneakyimp]

/* outputs an html <select> element with the country options */
function country_select($select_name) {
  global $countries;

  echo '<select name="' . $select_name . '">' . "\n";
  foreach($countries as $abbrev => $country) {
    echo '<option value="' . htmlspecialchars($abbrev) . '">' . htmlspecialchars($country) . "</option>\n";
  }
  echo "</select>\n";
}

Perhaps you can figure out how to output the states based on that function.

As for accessing the database, your question is really vague. You need to focus more specifically on what PHP code you have and that might give us a clearer indication of what you are lacking.