Re: Is there a way to display data from database for Select Options in a form?

Sue wrote:

Hello, We have a form that contains a Select option for a listing of available dates for the user to choose from. Right now we have to manually change the dates within the form's Selection list as new dates become available to choose from. We currently store these available dates in our database, and am wondering if we can somehow extract these dates from the table to display in our form? This would eliminate alot of maintenance needed to this form. If anyone has any ideas as to reference material etc. that I may look which would give me an idea how to do this using PHP, I'd appreciate it!

I am guessing that your php skills are not that hot. filling a select box is php 101.... here is function that generates a selectbox based on the given 'data' - now you have to go and figure out how to build the array $items (which is passed as the first arg to this function) from the data in your table: /** selectTag() * generate an html select list using the given $items as options. *

 * @param   array   $items      - list of items to display as options

* @param array $selected - value of select item in $items * @param string $selectname - value of select tag's name attribute

 * @param   numeric $addnone    - add a 'blank' option to the top of the list

* (different types depending on valuepassed) * @param string $onchange - value of select tag's onchange attribute * @param string $selectid - value of select tag's id attribute * @param boolean $readonly - whether the select tag is readsonly or not * @param array $readonly - whether the select tag is readsonly or not * @param boolean $option_class_arr - optional CSS class names for individual option tags * @param string $selectHTMLattribs - passthru HTML (attributes for the select tag) * * @return string */ function selectTag($items, $selected = '', $selectname = '', $addnone = 0, $onchange = '', $selectid = '', $readonly = 0, $option_class_arr = array(), $selectHTMLattribs = '') {

    // must have an array of items
    if (!is_array($items)) {
        return '';
    }

    // determine the value of the selected item
    $selected = strtolower(trim($selected));

    // list of options we will generate
    $opts     = array();

    // add item with value 0 ?
    $add_none_value = 0;
    switch ( $addnone )  {
        case '1':   // item display = 'none'
            $zero_id_item = getStr('None');
            break;
        case '3':   // item display = '0'
            $zero_id_item = getStr('zero_digit');
            break;
        case '2':   // item display = 'all'
        case '4':   // item display = 'all <digit>' e.g. 'all 3'
            $zero_id_item = getStr('All');
            break;
        default:
            if(!empty($addnone) && $addnone != '0') {
                if(is_array($addnone)) {
                    list($add_none_value, $zero_id_item) = @each($addnone);
                } else {
                    // here we can drop in a custom 'blank' item:
                    $zero_id_item = $addnone;
                }
            }
            break;
    }
    if (isset($zero_id_item)) {
        $thisselected = ($selected > '')  ? '' : ' selected="selected"';
        // FIX THE NEXT LINE - BUT NOT IMPORTANT
        $opts[]     = '<option value="'.htmlentities($add_none_value, ENT_QUOTES).'"'
		      .$thisselected'>'.ucwords($zero_id_item).'</option>';
    }

    $thisselected = '';
    foreach ($items as  $value => $displayname) {
        $thisselected = ($selected > '' && $selected == strtolower($value)) ? ' selected="selected"' : '';
        $class_var    = (isset($option_class_arr[$value])) ? ' class="' . $option_class_arr[$value] . '" ' : '';
        $opts[]       = '<option value="'.htmlentities($value, ENT_QUOTES)
		        .'"'.$thisselected.$class_var.'>'.ucwords($displayname).'</option>';
    }

    // various select tag attribute values
    $onchange = (($onchange = trim($onchange)) > '')
              ? " onchange=\"$onchange\""
              : ''
              ;
    $id       = ($selectid = strval($selectid))
              ? " id=\"{$selectid}\""
              : ''
              ;
    $readonly = ($readonly == 1)
              ? ' readonly="readonly"'
              : ''
              ;

    return "<select name=\"{$selectname}\" {$selectHTMLattribs}{$id}{$onchange}{$readonly}>".
           join('', $opts).
           '</select>';

}

Thanks! Sue