PHP Select List To Drive Table Display - php

Question

I'm having a tough time figuring out how to have a select list drive what is returned in a table. Scenario, there are a list of projects, pending what project your user has access to a subset of items are returned.
Here is some code:
query:
$q = "SELECT DISTINCT projectid, projectname FROM projects where active=1";
select list construction:
//variable for projects list select list name
$dropdown = "Projects Lists \n <select name=\"ProjectsLists\">";
//loop results
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
$dropdown .= "\r\n<option value='{$row['projectid']}'>{$row['projectname']}</option>";
}//end while
$dropdown .= "\r\n</select>";
echo $dropdown;
Then what i'd like to do is display items returned from a query that needs to be run when the select list is select:
$s_query = "SELECT contentname, contentlocation FROM projectscontent WHERE projectname=<select list value>";
I'm having trouble figuring out if i can capture the selected value. If so, how? I thought i could maybe do $_GET['selectlistname']; but i don't think that is right.

Answer 1

you have to use jquery event .change() this will help you for what you want.
For example:
Add an id in you select options
like $dropdown = "Projects Lists \n <select id=\"mylist\" name=\"ProjectsLists\">";
now with jquery use something like this:
$('#mylist').change(
//provide you selected value
var proName = $(this).val();
//call ajax
$.ajax({
url: 'queryPage.php',
data: 'proName=' + proName,
success: function(data){
$('#result').html(data);
}
});
);
queryPage.php:
//$_REQUEST['proName'] provide you select product name
$productname = mysql_real_escape_string( $_REQUEST['proName'] );
// Now start your query
$s_query = "SELECT contentname, contentlocation FROM projectscontent
WHERE projectname='$productname' ";
now start to run the query and echo the result here on the same page, this will return the data to the page from where you call queryPage.php.

Answer 2

I personally use jQuery DataTables for this type of functionality. I generate a dropdown or group of dropdowns, then on click of a button I update my DataTable element. There are several tutorials on how to do this on the website.
I'm a little concerned, though, that your tables are a bit wonky. This should be very straightforward, and might require more tables than you're telling us about. I'd personally link my two tables on projectid if I was using the structure you're showing above. Then, I'd add an additional table (via inner join on userid) that links users.userid, permissions, and projectid. This would be queried into the second query in your example above to handle permissions.
When I'm generating my dropdown, I'm keeping that simple too. Each <option> would have a value = projectid and the display value would be the project name. On change of the select element listing the projects, I'd run a query (ajax preferrably) to get myself all the project details joined with permissions with where clauses to limit my results to the user, based on permissions. No need to do exotic "merged" values, etc.