error checking woes

Hi, Now that the drop down is working properly (thanks!!), I am trying to validate, and having LOTS of trouble. After being ceaselessly derided last night on an irc channel for my dimwitedness, I am still not any closer. The code which works is this: function GetQuestionsDropdown($cat){ //first get all the questions $sql = "SELECT * FROM questions WHERE questions.q_cat=$cat AND questions.q_style=1"; $result = mysql_query($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 ($message[$row['q_name']] == 1){ echo "<div class='error'>"; } //Make a question set div wrapper echo "<div class='q_set'>\n"; //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 ">" . $ans_row['a_answer'] . "</option>"; echo "\n"; } echo ' </select>' . "\n" . ' </div>' . "\n"; echo "</div><!--q_set-->\n\n"; //If there *was* an error div, close it if (sizeof($message[$row['q_name']])){ echo "</div><!--/error-->"; } }

    }//function GetQuestionsDropdown

NOW I have to validate after it's submitted. I am trying to look and see, if $_POST[$row['q_name']] is empty then make message of the same name = 1, so if if(empty($_POST['partners'])) {

       $message['partners'] = '1'

} Then when I restate the dropdown function, and it shows the questions again, those error checking things I built in will a) show a div class=error around questions with a message b) pre-select the previously selected answers (because I have put in the thing in the dropdown which says if ($row['q_name'] == $ans_row['a_id']) { echo " selected";} The validate code I was trying, the subject of such howling on IRC (and I know it doesn't work, but not why) was: function ValidatePost($cat){ //first get the q_names $sql = "SELECT * FROM questions WHERE q_cat=$cat"; $result = mysql_query($sql); //go through the question set while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { if(empty($_POST[$row['q_name']])){ $message[$row['q_name']] == "1"; } } }//function ValidatePost Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? Thanks! JJ