Question

I`m using this code to repopulate drop down list from the database :

      $city_id = 15;
  while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { 
          $selected = ($row['city_id'] == $city_id) ? 'selected="selected" ' : NULL;
          echo '<option value="'.$city_id .$selected . '">"'.$row['city_name'].'"</option>\n';

  }

It`s work like a charm but my question is are they more elegance solutions ?

Answer 1

I always use a function, since select boxes are something I end up creating a lot…

function select($name, $default, $values, $style='', $param='') {
        $html = '<select name="'.$name.'" style="'.$style.'" '.$param.' >';
        foreach($values as $i => $data) {
            if (isset($data['noFormat'])) { 
                $html .= '<option value="'.$data['value'].'" '.(($data['value']==$default)?'SELECTED="SELECTED"':'').' '.
                         (isset($data['style']) ? ' style="'.$data['style'].'" ' : '').'>'.$data['text'].'</option>';
            } else {
                $html .= '<option value="'.htmlentities($data['value']).'" '.(($data['value']==$default)?'SELECTED="SELECTED"':'').' '.
                         (isset($data['style']) ? ' style="'.$data['style'].'" ' : '').'>'.htmlentities($data['text']).'</option>';
            }
        }
        $html .= '</select>';
        return $html;                 
    }

Then loop through your query to build the array like this:

$default[] = array('value' => '0',   'text' => 'Select a City...');
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {  
    $list[] = array('value' => $row['city_id'], 'text' => $row['city_name']);
}
$list = array_merge($default,$list);

And finally an example to create the HTML:

select('select','form_el_name',$list['0'],$list,'font-size:12px;','onChange="document.forms[0].submit();"');

Hope it helps!