PHP problem

catalinus

Suppose the following situation:
- we have 2 comboboxes: one which will retrieve the manufacturer of a car, and the other one shall retrieve all the models of cars manufactured by that firm.
- I have 2 tables involved in this operation: Manufacturer(IDManufacturer, Manufacturer) and Cars (IDManufacturer, Model)
- how could be done (via php) the following thing: when I select a manufacturer from the first combo, the second combo should contain the models made by that specific manufacturer.
Thanks.

Anon

Look at the Javascript code in the HTML source of sites like cars.com or carpoint.msn.com as an example of the Javascript you need to generate in your PHP code.

crislewis

Depends on whether you want this to mean a trip back to the server or not.

If there is a lot of data (manufacturers and models) then a server round trip is best. Simply force a refresh when the combo is changed ensuring the server gets the new value and can select data for the model combo accordingly. The refresh needs to be forced through javascript.

If you mave minimal data that is reasonably static you could do this in javascript and not involve the server. Not the best option though with lots of data.

Cheers,

Cris

Anon

OK, I understand.
I have made something in java: for onrelease() event of the first combo, the second one gathers the data from an array. But there are lots of car models, and this takes lots of data to be put on the page. So I will try the solution with gathering the data from the database.
Question: will this javascript work in a php form? More specifically, the action for the submit button should be coded in java or in php?
Thanks.