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

[Jochem Maas <jochem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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 

--
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php