How can I store an HTML Select element within a php variable?

Question

I would like to be able to store the following select element, complete with the php foreach loop that constructs it, inside a variable, that can then be included in a dynamically created form.(the first two lines are just showing what $statement and $lengths are.) The solution i tried is down below, but it won't let me put a foreach loop within a variable.

   //$statement = 'in %s days %s will have the most followers'
   //$lengths = array([0]=>'3 days',[1]=>'4 days',[2]=>'6 days')

   <select name="timeframe">  
     <?php foreach($lengths as $length)
     {
       echo "<option value = " . $length . "/>" . $length . "</option>";
     }?> 
    </select>

Here is my first attemt solution(failed):

<?php
 $select_a = '<select name="timeframe">' .  
   foreach($lengths as $length)
 {
   echo "<option value = " . $length . "/>" . $length . "</option>";
 } . '</select>';

 $select_b = '<select name="celebrity">' . 
   foreach($names as $name)
 {
   echo "<option value = " . $name . "/>" . $name . "</option>";
 } . '</select>';?>

The reason I'm doing this is because the arrays($lengths and $names) will each be stored in serialized form in a database(then unserialized to be able to loop through here), and in a third field will be a statement with %s placeholders. The final result would be that I can just echo out the below within a html form element.

here is how I would like to echo out the final result:<?php echo sprintf($statement, $select_a, $select_b);?> — Bennie
– Bennie, Commented Oct 28, 2013 at 3:45

Marcus Lind · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-28 04:16:32Z

1

Instead of using echo's and new variables like that, you can just use $select_a .= X. The .= operator adds values or strings to an variable, instead of replacing the old ones.

So in your case you could write:

$select_a = '<select name="timeframe">';  
foreach($lengths as $length)
{
$select_a .= "<option value = " . $length . "/>" . $length . "</option>";
} 
$select_a .= '</select>';

$select_b = '<select name="celebrity">'; 
foreach($names as $name)
{
$select_b .= "<option value = " . $name . "/>" . $name . "</option>";
}
$select_b .= '</select>';

answered Oct 28, 2013 at 4:16

Marcus Lind

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Marcus Lind Over a year ago

Thank you. Please mark the answer as correct if it solved your issue and was correct for your question.

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