Re: Dropdown Building Function

Kristen G. Thorson wrote:

I'm not 100% sure where you're saying you're stuck, but I think you're trying to do with one query what you will probably find is best to do with several. Hopefully the following will help some: //first get all the questions $sql = "select * from questions"; $result = mysql_query( $sql ); //now one-by-one go through the questions while( $row = mysql_fetch_row( $result ) { //create the drop down box for THIS question echo '<select name="'.$row['question_text'].'">'; //get all of the answers for THIS question $ans_sql = "select * from answers where question_id=".$row['question_id']; $ans_result = mysql_query( $ans_sql ); while( $ans_row = mysql_fetch_row( $ans_result ) ) {

      //list the answers for THIS question
      echo '<option value="'.$ans_row['answer_id'].'">'.$ans_row['answer_text'].'</option>';

} echo '</select>'; } outputs: <select name="question1"> <option value="1">answer 1</option> <option value="2">answer 2</option> <option value="3">answer 3</option> <select name="question2"> <option value="1">answer 1</option> <option value="2">answer 2</option> <option value="3">answer 3</option> <option value="4">answer 4</option> <option value="5">answer 5</option> It requires numerous DB calls, but I believe in most cases, it's still better than what you'd have to do otherwise (create some arrays and do some sorting, etc.). That is, if I've understood what you need ;) And it did!!

//first get all the questions $sql = "select * from questions ORDER BY q_cat"; $result = mysql_query($sql); //now one-by-one go through the questions while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { //if the form has been submitted, and the question unanswered //highlight this whole question and answer block in red. if (sizeof($message[$row['q_name']])){ echo "<div class='error'>"; } //State the question echo "<div class='question'>"; echo $row['q_text'] . "</div>"; echo "\n\n"; echo " <div class='answer'>"; echo "\n"; //Create the dropdown for the answers echo ' <select name="' . $row['q_name'] . '">'; echo "\n"; //get all of the answers for THIS question $ans_sql = "select * from answers where answers.q_id=" . $row['q_id']; $ans_result = mysql_query($ans_sql);

		echo "    <option value=\"\">Select from this list</option>\n";

while($ans_row = mysql_fetch_assoc($ans_result)) { //list the answers for THIS question

		echo "    <option ";

echo "value=\"" . $ans_row['a_id'] . "\""; if ($row['q_name'] == $ans_row['a_id']) { echo " selected"; } echo ">" . $ans_row['a_answer'] . "</option>"; echo "\n"; } echo ' </select>' . "\n" . ' </div>' . "\n\n"; //If there *was* an error div, close it if (sizeof($message[$row['q_name']])){ echo "</div><!--/error-->"; } } Thanks so much!