Question

I have the following code I am using to populate a second dropdown box after the first dropdown box is selected (actually they are all already made, it just reveals the correct one based on your first dropdown:

<tr><th>Customer</th><td>
        <select name='customer_id' id='customer_id'>
            <option value=''>-- Select Customer --</option>
            <?php
            $results = Misc::customerDropDown();
            while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($results)) {
                echo "<option value='" . $row['customer_id'] . "'>" . $row['customer_name'] . "</option>";
            }
            ?>
        </select><span class='error'>&nbsp;*&nbsp;<?php echo $errors['customer_id']; ?></span>
    </td></tr>
<?php
$results = Misc::customerDropDown();
$num_customers = mysql_num_rows($results);
$n = 1;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($results)) {
    ?>
    <tr class='locations' id='locations<?= $row['customer_id'] ?>'><th>Customer Location</th><td>
            <select name='customer_location<?= $n ?>'>
                <option value=''>-- Customer Locations --</option>
                <?
                $location_results = Misc::locationDropDown($row['customer_id']);
                while ($option = mysql_fetch_array($location_results)) {
                    echo "<option value='" . $option['location_id'] . "'>" . $option['location_name'] . "</option>";
                }
                ?>
            </select><span class='error'>&nbsp;*&nbsp;<?php echo $errors['customer_location']; ?></span></td></tr>                                   
    <? $n++;
} ?> 

The problem that I’m having is that no matter what I’ve tried the last ‘customer_location’ dropdown is the one that always gets used because when it submits it’s (I believe) overwriting the other two.

I tried making customer_location an array (customer_location[]) but that just makes it think there are (for example) 3 arrays instead of an array with 3 elements. I also tried (as shown) naming the location by tacking on a $n to the end of each one but then when I go to reference the post I don’t know how as I can’t reference $_POST['customer_location$n']

Ideas?

Answer 1

Based on a tip from @Barmar (see comments) I was able to piece together the solution to find and assign the value of the needed input with the following:

// Figure out which customer_location$n to use
                foreach ($_POST as $key=>$value){ 
                 if (preg_match('/^customer_location/', $key)){ 
                  if($value!=NULL){ $location = $value; }
                 }
                }