Question

Hi. I have the form in which I use form_validation If the user make any mistake (leave some required fields empty), user is redirected back to the form, and the form has been re-populated. All works, except my select , which is generated from the database.

Here is my code from the view:

echo "<select name='parentid'" . set_value("parentid"). ">";
echo '<option value = "0">None</option>';
foreach ($faq_categories as $row => $option) {
    echo "<option value=" . $option['catid'] . ">" . $option['categoryname']. "</option>";
}
echo '</select>';

Here is my controller code:

 public function displayAddFaqCategoryForm($error = null)
    {
        $data['title'] = "Add new FAQ Category";
        $data['main_content'] = 'addFaqCategory';
        $selectWhat = array('tname' => 'faq_categories',
                            'sortby'=> 'catid',
                            'how'   => 'asc'
                            );
        $this->load->model('selectRecords');
        $data['faq_categories'] = $this->selectRecords->selectAllRecords($selectWhat);
        $this->load->vars($data);
        $this->load->view('backOffice/template');
    } // end of function displayAddFaqCategoryForm 

And here is the model code:

 public function selectAllRecords($selectWhat = array())
    {
        $data = array();
        $tname = $selectWhat['tname'];
        $sortby = $selectWhat['sortby'];
        $how = $selectWhat['how'];
        $this->db->order_by($sortby,$how);
        $query = $this->db->get($tname);
        if($query->num_rows() > 0) 
        {
            foreach($query->result_array() as $row) 
            {
                $data[] = $row;  
            }
        }
        $query->free_result();
        return $data;
    } // end of function selectAllRecords 

I am not getting any error messages, just the select is not repopulated with last used. Any help will be deeply appreciated.

Answer 1

You’re using set_value() incorrectly

echo "<select name='parentid'" . set_value("parentid"). ">";

It’s meant to output the actual value (for text inputs). This would produce something like:

<select name='parentid'ActualValue>

Which is not how a <select> element is populated, and is invalid HTML. See the correct usage in the Form Helper docs.

You can use set_select(), and it goes on your <option>:

foreach ($faq_categories as $row => $option) {

    echo "<option value=".form_prep($option['catid']).'"';

    echo set_select('parentid', $option['catid']); // outputs selected="selected"

    echo ">".html_escape($option['categoryname'])."</option>";
}

I’ve taken a few other liberties with your code here as you can see, to be on the safe side (always).

If this is too much of a mess, you might be interested in the form_dropdown() function.