PHP Dropdown menu with MySQL

Question

I want to insert a value from the database into my dropdown menu in php. Here's what I'm looking to do: I have an edit form page which pulls info from the database and populates itself. However, the dropdown menu is hardcoded and I want the value from the database to be the one that is selected when that pages loads, this allows the user to keep that value or pulldown the menu and select something else.

Is there any way of doing this? I don't know if I'm making any sense at all :)

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<select>
    <option>Select employ</option>
    <?php
    mysql_connect('localhost','user','pass');
    mysql_select_db('employ');
    $query="select id, name from employ order by name asc";
    $result=mysql_query($query);
    while(list($id, $name)=mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
        echo "<option value=\"".$id."\">".$name."</option>";
    }
    ?>
</select>

</body>
</html>

That code is for reading and dynamically creating a dropdown menu, but that is not what I'm looking for. Instead, the dropdown has already been created on the client side before the page loads - so I want just the 'name' that is returned from the database to be selected in the dropdown menu just like other values are displayed in the form.

Any help would be appreciated.

If you are talking about client-side, you have to use javascript. — Aurelio De Rosa
– Aurelio De Rosa, Commented Oct 16, 2011 at 20:13

Emil Elkjær · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-12 17:38:25Z

2

I would use a code like this:

<?php
$host="localhost";
$username="user";
$password="password";
$db_name="employ";
$tbl_name="employ";


mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect");
mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");

$sql="SELECT * FROM $tbl_name ORDER BY name ASC";
$result=mysql_query($sql);
if ($result === false) { echo "An error occurred."; }

?>

<html>
<head>
<title>Your title here</title>
</head>
<body>
<select name="usrname" id="usrname">
<option>Select employ</option>
<?php
while($rows=mysql_fetch_array($result)){
?>
<option value="<? echo $rows['id']; ?>"><? echo $rows['name']; ?></option>
<?php
}
mysql_close();
?>
</select>
</body>
</html>

It sets the value of the selected item as your ID and shows the name just as you wanted it to :-) Hope it helped

answered Nov 12, 2012 at 17:38

Emil Elkjær

6851 gold badge10 silver badges31 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Helen Neely Over a year ago

Thanks for the input - I hope someone else finds your contribution useful.

Joseph Duffy · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-16 20:21:25Z

1

I'm not sure I've got the right idea here, but I'll get it a crack.
I'm assuming you want the currently selected employee to be the selected employee? I don't know how you plan on tracking which user is selected, but here I'll assume you have it in a variable $selected.

while(list($id, $name)=mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
    if($selected==$name) {
    echo "<option value=\"".$id."\" selected=\"selected\">".$name."</option>";
    } else {
        echo "<option value=\"".$id."\">".$name."</option>";
    }
}

Hope I have the right idea, and that this helps :)

answered Oct 16, 2011 at 20:21

Joseph Duffy

4,8469 gold badges43 silver badges69 bronze badges

Comments

Marknl · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-16 20:53:05Z

1

Mutch cleaner example:

while(list($id, $name)=mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
      echo '<option value='.$id.'" '.($selected==$name? 'selected="selected"':'').'>'.$name.'</option>';
}

answered Oct 16, 2011 at 20:53

Marknl

1821 silver badge9 bronze badges

Comments

Sajid · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-16 20:20:20Z

0

If I understand this right, you want to "repopulate the form". To do that, try this:

$currentValue = isset($_REQUEST['selectName']) ? $_REQUEST['selectName'] : null;
while(list($id, $name)=mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
    echo "<option value=\"{$id}\";
    if ($id == $currentValue) echo ' selected="selected"';
    echo ">".$name."</option>";
}

Basically, you get the current value if it's available from the post data, and then mark the selected element selected it if it's there.

answered Oct 16, 2011 at 20:20

Sajid

4,42123 silver badges14 bronze badges

Comments

Helen Neely · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-11 21:31:10Z

0

Thanks folks, I finally got an answer somewhere on this site. It was an answer to someone else's question and it work for me too.

answered Nov 11, 2011 at 21:31

Helen Neely

4,7408 gold badges45 silver badges65 bronze badges

2 Comments

에이바바 Over a year ago

Could you please post the link to the answer you found helpful?

Helen Neely Over a year ago

Ok, will look for it and post it here later.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PHP Dropdown menu with MySQL

5 Answers 5

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

5 Answers 5

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related