Question

From the database I pull back the user information and based on this I can determine the correct index value using a case statement:

<?php
    $genderIndex = 0;
    switch ($displayProperties['gender']) 
    {
        case "":
            $genderIndex = 0;
            break;
        case "Male":
            $genderIndex = 1;
            break;
        case "Female":
            $genderIndex = 2;
            break;
        case "Other":
            $genderIndex = 3;
            break;
    }
 ?>

On the form I have an HTML dropdown (select):

<select name="gender" selectedIndex="<?php echo $genderIndex; ?>">
    <option value="0"> </option>
    <option value="Male">Male</option>
    <option value="Female">Female</option>
    <option value="Other">Other</option>
</select><br/>

The problem is it never works and always loads the page at index=0 and I made sure to verify if $genderIndex actually has the expected value (it does).

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

selectedindex property is not used in this way, for appropriate use of the selectedindex property you can view http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/prop_select_selectedindex.asp.

Instead what you are after is applying the “selected” attribute to the appropriate option. The code below runs some shorthand if/else checks and will apply the “selected” attribute where appropriate, based on your $genderIndex you created in your function given.

<select name="gender">
    <option value="0" <?php echo ($genderIndex==0)?('selected'):(''); ?>"> </option>
    <option value="Male" <?php echo ($genderIndex==1)?('selected'):(''); ?>>Male</option>
    <option value="Female" <?php echo ($genderIndex==2)?('selected'):(''); ?>>Female</option>
    <option value="Other" <?php echo ($genderIndex==3)?('selected'):(''); ?>>Other</option>
</select><br/>