Question

I have this code:

<label for=subject accesskey=S>Subject</label>
<select name="subject" type="text" id="subject">
<option value="a dog">Dog</option>
<option value="a cat">Car</option>
<option value="a tree">Tree</option>
</select>

If I wanted to preselect a selection via the URL,

Would it not be:

http://xxx.com/contactus.php?subject=a cat

I have tried the above and it does not work.

I have had a look around and there are posts about adding Java Script. I wish to avoid that if possible.

Answer 1

If you url is http://xxx.com/contactus.php?subject=a cat

You can use $_GET['subject'] to get to the value of subject.

So something like:

<label for=subject accesskey=S>Subject</label>
<select name="subject" type="text" id="subject">
<option value="a dog" <?php echo ($_GET['subject'] == 'a dog' ? 'selected="selected"' : ''); ?>>Dog</option>
<option value="a cat" <?php echo ($_GET['subject'] == 'a cat' ? 'selected="selected"' : ''); ?>>Car</option>
<option value="a tree" <?php echo ($_GET['subject'] == 'a tree' ? 'selected="selected"' : ''); ?>>Tree</option>
</select>

Dont forget to use urlencode on your values and strip them before using in a query. Like so:

http://xxx.com/contactus.php?subject=a%20cat and urlencode(stripslashes($_GET['subject']))