PHP/Postgresql issue populating a dropdownlist with db content - php

Question

I've taken a look at several examples although none seems to work, I intend to populate a drop down box from a table in PostgreSQL db, I've done the reverse which I though it was more complex.
Right now I have the following: (tried different ways already)
...
<ul>
<form name="display" action="" method="post">
<label>Select a terminal profile:</label>
<select name='ddlTerminalProfiles'>
<option>choose...<option/>
<?php
#DB Connection
$con_string= "host=localhost port=1234 dbname=myDB user=myUser password=myPass";
$db_con = pg_connect($con_string);
#Query for profiles
$result=pg_query($dbcon, "SELECT * FROM profiles");
while ($row = pg_fetch_array($result))
{
?>
<option value="<? echo $row['profile_name'];?>"><?echo $row['profile_name'];?></option>
<?
}
?>
</select>
<br/>
...
Connection is fine, data in database as well.
Also tried triggering with if(isset($_POST['REFRESH']))... adding a refresh button. No luck.

Answer 1

In this code
<?php
#DB Connection
$con_string= "host=localhost port=1234 dbname=myDB user=myUser password=myPass";
$db_con = pg_connect($con_string);
pg_connect() sets the value of $db_con. But this code
#Query for profiles
$result=pg_query($dbcon, "SELECT * FROM profiles");
doesn't use $db_con. It uses $dbcon.
PHP documentation for each function tells you what it returns should there be an error. If a function can return some kind of error status, you need to look for it.
$db_con = pg_connect($con_string);
if (!$db_con) {
echo "pg_connect failed.", PHP_EOL;
}
pg_query() and pg_fetch_array() return an error status, too.
String concatenation code is easier to build up piece by piece. Start with
echo "<option></option>", PHP_EOL;
That should be obviously right; there's no concatenation. Add quotation marks. Failing to escape quotes is a frequent source of errors.
echo "<option value=\"\"></option>", PHP_EOL;
Add row values using curly brace syntax.
echo "<option value=\"{$row['profile_name']}\">{$row['profile_name']}</option>", PHP_EOL;