Question

Ok, so heres my question. I have a select dropdown that is populated from my table, category_names. I am getting the id and the name and using the id as the value. And the name as the select name.

<?php
      include("./config.php");
      $query="SELECT id,name FROM category_names";
      $result = mysql_query ($query);
      echo "<strong>Pick as many that fit your business</strong><br/><br/>";
      echo"<div style='overflow:auto;height:300px;width:100%'><select>";
      // while loop
      while($nt=mysql_fetch_array($result)){//Array or records stored in $nt


      echo "<option value=NAME=$nt[id]>$nt[name]</option><br/>

";

      }?>

Ok so that populates my select. But now I want to hit a little “ADD” hyperlink at the bottom and another identical select dropdown to appear underneath that is also populated from my database. And each select needs to add to a different row in table. How do I achieve this?

Answer 1

Simple function for populating selects on abstract array of values

<?php
function make_select($select_name,$select_vals,$name_of_key,$name_of_label){
    echo "<select name='".$select_name."'>";
    foreach($select_vals as $opt){
        echo "<option value=NAME=".$opt[$name_of_key].">".$opt[$name_of_label]."</option>";
    }
    echo "</select>";
}
?>

and you can call it like:

<?php
    $result_set = mysql_query('SELECT id_of_category,name FROM categories;');
    make_select('first_select',$mysql_fetch_assoc($result_set),'id_of_category','name');
    $result_set2 = mysql_query('SELECT id_of_product,title FROM products;');
    make_select('second_select',$mysql_fetch_assoc($result_set2),'id_of_product','title');