Question

I have $data which contains something like this and changes often:

backup 2011-04-15 16:39:18.559965.zip
backup 2011-04-15 16:39:56.289656.zip
backup 2011-04-15 16:41:34.463754.zip
backup 2011-04-15 16:41:54.089134.zip
backup 2011-04-15 16:42:18.742616.zip
backup 2011-04-16 13:12:33.083622.zip
backup 2011-04-16 13:14:53.387308.zip
backup 2011-04-17 00:30:32.591461.zip

How can i make that it will transform it into a Dropdown list, so people can choose from and i can use result as $_POST[‘file’]?

Answer 1

1. Read text using fopen()
2. Split text into array using explode()
3. Loopt trough array using foreach()
4. echo elements between option tags.

EDIT

I did not provide any code because you should be able to write this yourself following the steps above. Simply use Google to find out how these functions work. You can only learn PHP by implementing things yourself. Don’t expect people to write complete scripts for you.

Anyways, this should be working 🙂

$path = "files.txt";
$file = fopen($path, 'r');
$data = fread($file, filesize($path));
fclose($file);

$lines =  explode(PHP_EOL,$data);
echo '<select name="file">';
foreach($lines as $line) {
  echo '<option value="'. urlencode($line).'">'.$line.'</option>';
}
echo '</select>';

You can also use file_get_contents() instead of fopen().

$data = file_get_contents("files.txt");

EDIT

Added file() like recommended by Wiseguy

$lines = file('files.txt');
echo '<select name="file">';
foreach($lines as $line) {
  echo '<option value="'. urlencode($line).'">'.$line.'</option>';
}
echo '</select>';