Question

I have the following drop down list and selects the option based on the url e.g. http://www.domain.com/?car=Algema&city=Paris

The problem is thatI have 104 different forms and some of them are containg more than one dropdownlist. It is impossible to replace them. Is there a way to replace the $_GET['car'] with the $_GET['get the name of select id or name automatically'] ?

Maybe a re-writing regex script that will replace all my php files?

<select name="car" id="car" class="select">
<option value="Algema" <?php echo $_REQUEST['car'] == 'Algema' ? 'selected="selected"' : '';?>>Algema</option>
<option value="Barkas" <?php echo $_REQUEST['car'] == 'Barkas' ? 'selected="selected"' : '';?>>Barkas</option>
<option value="Cadillac" <?php echo $_REQUEST['car'] == 'Cadillac' ? 'selected="selected"' : '';?>>Cadillac</option>
</select>

Answer 1

Use something less repetitive like this:

function makeSelect($name, $options) {
    foreach ($options as &$option) {
        $selected = isset($_GET[$name]) && $_GET[$name] == $option;
        $option = sprintf('<option value="%1$s"%2$s>%1$s</option>',
                          htmlspecialchars($option),
                          $selected ? ' selected="selected"' : null);
    }

    return sprintf('<select name="%1$s" id="%1$s" class="select">%2$s</select>',
                   htmlspecialchars($name),
                   join($options));
}

$options = array('Algema', 'Barkas', 'Cadillac', …);
echo makeSelect('car', $options);

You can probably automate the extraction of the option names into the array format using a Regex, but you’ll still have to confirm everything by hand at least.