Less-expensive way to set up defaults in lists etc?

[Margaret MacDonald]

I'm currently setting up default selections in <select> lists by
passing an array of those defaults as keys ( 'valuefoo' => true ) as
an argument to the function that sets up the list. Then, as I build
each <option>, I call array_key_exists ( thisoptionvalue,
arrayofdefaults ) to check whether to include the
'selected="selected"' string.

So the code looks something like

Routine ( array( 'valuefoo' => true, 'valuebar' => true ) ) ;
.....

function Routine ( $defaultvals )
{
for ( $i= etc. )
echo '<option....' . ( array_key_exists( 'curroptval',
$defaultvals ) ? 'selected="selected"' : '' ) . etc ' ;
}

(I've elided a lot of syntax, but you get the idea)

That seems slow and tedious. Does anyone know a cheaper way?

Thanks,
Margaret
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