need help BADLY

[Anon]

Hi,
i'm new to PHP and mySQL, but i'm having trouble already.
all i want to do is to (with PHP) take the selected item from a select box and store its value in a variable in a table
but everything i try, the variable just ends up as null, as in "". I've tried a lot of tutorials, but none which deal with select drop down boxes. i've tried the variables with and without brackets, and with and without quotes. All the names are correct, too. here's the code:

<?

$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "");

mysql_select_db("jamDB",$db);

$sql = "INSERT INTO info (seeker,seeking,instrument,instrument2,state,style) VALUES ('[$selSeeker]','[$selSeeking]','[$selInstrument]','[$selInstrument2]','[$selState]','[$selType]')";

$result = mysql_query($sql);

?>

some please help!!!
thanks,
Eric

[[deleted]]

first rule of debugging sql: print the query before you execute it.

If your database contains only '', then your query must be inserting that. ie: the query is wrong.

BTW: why all the [ and ] in thw query?

[Anon]

i know the query is wrong, that's why i came here 🙂 the brackets '[]' are there because that's one of the things i tried, but i also tried without the brackets, but still no luck

[[deleted]]

So what does the query look like??