Hold country value when submit - php

Question

<label>Country <font color="8AC007">*</font> </label></td>
<td><select name="country" onchange="print_state('state',this.selectedIndex);" id="country"<?php
$sel_country = $myform->value('country');
if (isset($sel_country)) echo 'selected="selected"'; ?> />
<option value="<?php $myform->value("country"); ?>"/>Select country</option>
</select><br><?php $sel_country.'sample' ?>
<span class="error"><?php echo $myform->error("country"); ?></span>
I want to get hold with the country selected value when I submit form, instead filling the form from starting again. Here is the code Iam trying to get countries from a js file.
Apperciate your help

Answer 1

HTTP is stateless, so you have to put a little effort on keeping data around when moving from page to page. Seeing this as being a form with inputs (select in this case), you can use $_POST to get hold of your submitted value in the next page.
In this case you'd use $_POST['country']. If you want to keep the current form filled next time the page refreshes, make the form submit to the current page, then you'll have access to that value in $_POST.
Other ways to keep data around:
Sessions
Cookies
Database storage
But this require a little bit of additional coding in PHP.

Answer 2

<select name="country" onchange="print_state('state',this.selectedIndex);" id="country"/>
<option <?php if($youroldval==$myform->value('country')){ echo 'selected="selected"'; } ?> value="<?php echo $myform->value("country"); ?>"/><?php echo $myform->value("country"); ?></option>
</select>
You must store your old value of form

Answer 3

Ok, if I am right you should do it as follows.
If you are posting your page to the server. You have the selected value. You store this and return this page. In that case I added bollow code and added $isSelected to the code. Normally it emtpy, but if the value is equal to the selected then you set selected='selected'.
<select name="country">
<?php
$countryList = array("USA", "UK", "France", "Germany", "India", "Netherlands");
$isSelected = "";
foreach($countryList as $country)
{
if($_POST["country"] == $country)
{
$isSelected = "selected='selected'";
}
echo "<option value='" + $country + "' " + $isSelected + ">" + $country + "</option>";
?>
</select>
If you are using jquery / Ajax, you have the selected value which stays selected because the page wont refresh :-) However, you can get the value by using javascript and get value from selectbox.
------ Edit
Mmm ok, I was in the illusion you had your array in php. However you get your collection from javascript. In that case you will get this as solution:
<script type="text/javascript">
var selectedCountry = "<?php echo $myform->value("country"); ?>";
</script>
<select name="country" onchange="print_state('state',this.selectedIndex);" id="country">
/* This is generated by javascript */
</select>
Your javascript function will be like this:
function print_country(country_id){
// given the id of the <select> tag as function argument, it inserts <option> tags
var option_str = document.getElementById(country_id);
option_str.length=0;
option_str.options[0] = new Option('Select Country','');
option_str.selectedIndex = 0;
for (var i=0; i<country_arr.length; i++) {
option_str.options[option_str.length] = new Option(country_arr[i],country_arr[i]);
if(selectedCountry == country_arr[i])
{
option_str.options[option_str.length].setAttribute("selected", "selected");
}
}
}
----- Edit 2:
http://jsfiddle.net/eLProva/5mU76/ with filling and selecting the country