Large Drop Down Box value Selected by Table 2

[Muppsy007]

Hi,

I've got a free hyperbaric search database where people can look for a Dive chamber close to them. I'm in the process of making an update form where staff can login and update contact details held on our database.

When they login, a form opens with all of their details pre-entered into text feilds from the MySQL database. Easy enough. But I'm just having trouble working out how to pre-select the country using the value in the DB when the dropdown has around 200 hardcoded values.

Ok, I've done this before with a Gender and Title drop down, where it was easy to just do the following:

<select name="title" id="title" >
                                    <OPTION value=""> </option>
                                    <OPTION value="Mr"<? if (isset($recordset['title']) and $recordset['title'] == 'Mr') echo 'selected'?>>Mr</option>
                                    <OPTION value="Mrs"<? if (isset($recordset['title']) and $recordset['title'] == 'Mrs') echo 'selected'?>>Mrs</option>
                                    <OPTION value="Miss"<? if (isset($recordset['title']) and $recordset['title'] == 'Miss') echo 'selected'?>>Miss</option>
                                    <OPTION value="Ms"<? if (isset($recordset['title']) and $recordset['title'] == 'Ms') echo 'selected'?>>Ms</option>
                                    <OPTION value="Dr"<? if (isset($recordset['title']) and $recordset['title'] == 'Dr') echo 'selected'?>>Dr</option>
                                  </select>

Obviously this approach may be a bit tedious with 200 values. Is there an easier way? Am I better off loading all my countries into a table and do a loop to find the selected value? I don't want to use a text feild here, as we want to control the country names that are displayed in the search listings.

Thanks for any help
Aaron

 

[sleipnir214]

You're better off putting the country names in a table and looping. For that matter, I'd have put the honorifics in a table, too.

Your code for countries then becomes something like:

//assuming connection

$rh = mysql_query ("Some appropriate query for getting countries");
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($rh))
{
print '<option value="' . $row['country_column'] . '"';

if ($row['country_column'] == '<some previously selected value>')
print ' SELECTED';
print '>';
}


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[DRJ478]

Why don't you just build the entire dropdown dynamically?
It will contain all values, and only require a few lines of code.
Write a SQL statement that extracts all the countries and populate the <option> tags with that info. The comparison to the selected value remains the same.

 

[Muppsy007]

Thanks alot guys. Will do that.

Sorry for the lateness of my reply. Been on holiday for a week.

Thanks again. Database it is.

Aaron