Using DISTINCT in query to populate dropdown issue

[mackin]

HI - I am dynamically populating a drop down form list from the table 'hotels', and the 'est_town' column. It is supposed to only list each town once, but several towns appear multiple times. Am I using the DISTINCT command correctly and if so, what can i do to stop multiple appearances of towns?

$query_hotels_select = "SELECT DISTINCT est_town FROM hotels ORDER BY est_town ASC";
$hotels_select = mysql_query($query_hotels_select, $contractors) or die(mysql_error());
$row_hotels_select = mysql_fetch_assoc($hotels_select);
$totalRows_hotels_select = mysql_num_rows($hotels_select);

FORM BIT

<select name="digs" id="digs">

<?php
do {  

?>
<option value="<?php echo $row_hotels_select['est_town']?>"<?php if (!(strcmp($row_hotels_select['est_town'], $row_hotels_select['est_town']))) {echo "selected=\"selected\"";} ?>><?php echo ucwords(strtolower($row_hotels_select['est_town']))?></option>
           <?php 
} while ($row_hotels_select = mysql_fetch_assoc($hotels_select));
  $rows = mysql_num_rows($hotels_select);
  if($rows > 0) {
      mysql_data_seek($hotels_select, 0);
	  $row_hotels_select = mysql_fetch_assoc($hotels_select);
  }
?>

   [code=html] </select>[/code]

[planetphp]

It looks ok.

I usually do it in brackets like "SELECT DISTINCT(est_town) FROM ..."

I think you are duplicating your selects a bit.

This is all you need:

$query_hotels_select = "SELECT DISTINCT est_town FROM hotels ORDER BY est_town ASC";
$hotels_select = mysql_query($query_hotels_select, $contractors) or die(mysql_error());

while ($row_hotels_select = mysql_fetch_assoc($hotels_select))
{
echo '<option value="' . $row_hotels_select['est_town'] . '</option>';
}

[Ashley_Sheridan]

It could be that what appears to be a duplicate value is actually not. Are there any spaces in the hotel names at all, as a single extra space will make it a 'new' different value.

What happens when you just run that query in against your DB (outside of your PHP code) ?