Question

This should be easy but I’m having trouble…

In PHP how can I echo out a select drop down box that defaults to the current month and has options for 8 months prior (even if it goes in the last year).

For example, for this month it would default to June and end at November.

Answer 1

$months = array();
for ($i = 0; $i < 8; $i++) {
    $timestamp = mktime(0, 0, 0, date('n') - $i, 1);
    $months[date('n', $timestamp)] = date('F', $timestamp);
}

Alternative for “custom” month names:

$months = array(1 => 'Jan.', 2 => 'Feb.', 3 => 'Mar.', 4 => 'Apr.', 5 => 'May', 6 => 'Jun.', 7 => 'Jul.', 8 => 'Aug.', 9 => 'Sep.', 10 => 'Oct.', 11 => 'Nov.', 12 => 'Dec.');
$transposed = array_slice($months, date('n'), 12, true) + array_slice($months, 0, date('n'), true);
$last8 = array_reverse(array_slice($transposed, -8, 12, true), true);

To output an array of such months as dropdown is as simple as:

<select name="month">
    <?php
        foreach ($months as $num => $name) {
            printf('<option value="%u">%s</option>', $num, $name);
        }
    ?>
</select>