how to keep the choosed data in the <select> element? HTML - php

Question

here I have stupid question, hope you can help me.
I create a menu using Select element and option like this:
<option selected="selected">Select type...</option>
<option value="1">Doctor</option>
<option value="2">Patient</option>
and every time I need to pick one value from this menu and use the submit button next to it to transfer data.
But every time the page refreshed, this menu will reveal: Select type...
I want it to reveal the value I chose last time, but don't know how.
Many thanks in advance!!

Answer 1

You'll want to move that selected="selected" onto the selected option.
Doing so in PHP isn't too rough. Just check the $_POST or $_GET (however you sent the form) value for your select box, such as $_POST["selectBox"] for each value down the list. When you find a match, echo out the selected="selected" string there. If the value was empty, output it on your default value.

Answer 2

The easiest way to achieve this is to populate the <select> options in an array, then loop through it to display the <option> list and mark them as selected is the $_POST variable matches the correct value:
<?php $myselect = array(1=>'Doctor', 2=>'Patient'); ?>
<select name="myselect">
<option>Select type...</option>
<?php foreach ($myselect as $value => $label): ?>
<option value="<?php echo $value; ?>"<?php if (isset($_POST['myselect']) && $_POST['myselect'] == $value) echo ' selected'; ?>>
<?php echo $label; ?>
</option>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</select>

Answer 3

<select name="myselect">
<?php
$myselect = array('Select type...','Doctor','Patient');
for($i=0; $i<=2; $i++){
echo "<option value=\"{myselect[$i]}\"";
if (isset($_POST['myselect']) && $_POST['myselect'] == $myselect[$i]){
echo 'selected=\"selected\"';
}
echo ">{$myselect[$i]}</option>";
}
?>
</select>

Answer 4

You have to use the server-side language of you choice to store the selected value in a database, xml or text file.
Edit : I think I may have misunderstood your question.

Answer 5

There are a few ways to do this.
On submit you can save that value as a $_SESSION value and use that to set the select on page load.
Using Javascript you can either set a cookie on change or alter the url to add a parameter (url?selecttype=1) and set that on page load using PHP.
There's a good use of cookies in JS on quirksmode: http://www.quirksmode.org/js/cookies.html

Answer 6

You need to change which one is selected to match the request....
function create_select($properties, $opts)
{
$out="<select ";
foreach ($properties as $propname=>$propval) {
$out.=" $propname='$propval'";
}
$out.=">\n";
foreach ($opts as $val=>$caption) {
$out.="<option value='$value'";
if ($_REQUEST[$properties['name']]==$val) $out.=" SELECTED";
$out.=">$caption</option>\n";
}
$out.="</select>";
return $out;
}
print create_select(array('name'=>'direction',
'id'=>'direction',
'class'=>'colourful',
'onChange'=>''),
array('N'=>'North',
'S'=>'South',
'E'=>'East',
'W'=>'West'));