drop down populated by database

[jsd219]

Hello, hopefully someone can help me with this: I currently have a php
file that pulls a query from the field "category" from my database.
this file is called category.php. I am trying to populate a drop down
box in another page (called add_subpage.php) from the results of the
category page. the code below is on the add_subpage.php file: (It was
my best guess and does not work)

<select name="category">
<option value="CAT"<?php include 'category.php' ?>></option</select>

Can anyone tell me how to make this drop down populate from the
category php file?

I really appreciate any help!! Thank you

God bless
jason

[Geoff Berrow]

Message-ID: <11**********************@p47g2000hsd.googlegroups .comfrom
jsd219 contained the following:

><select name="category">
<option value="CAT"<?php include 'category.php' ?>></option</select>

Can anyone tell me how to make this drop down populate from the
category php file?

We need to see category.php.

If this file produces an array (called say $categories) then you could
do something like this:

<select name="category">
foreach ($categories as $category){
echo "<option >$category</option>\n";
}
?>
</select>
--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

[jsd219]

On Jun 7, 1:11 pm, Geoff Berrow <[e-mail]:

Message-ID: <11**********************@p47g2000hsd.googlegroups .comfrom
jsd219 contained the following:

<select name="category">
<option value="CAT"<?php include 'category.php' ?>></option</select>

Can anyone tell me how to make this drop down populate from the
category php file?

We need to see category.php.

If this file produces an array (called say $categories) then you could
do something like this:

<select name="category">
foreach ($categories as $category){
echo "<option >$category</option>\n";}

?>
</select>
--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDshttp://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

Thank you, i have one more question now. :-) i need to see the results
from my table where column Category has anything in it. I am assuming
i would use a WHERE statement but i don't know how to tell it to look
for anything in the field.

God bless
jason

[Geoff Berrow]

Message-ID: <11**********************@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups .comfrom
jsd219 contained the following:

>Thank you, i have one more question now. :-) i need to see the results
from my table where column Category has anything in it. I am assuming
i would use a WHERE statement but i don't know how to tell it to look
for anything in the field.

Something like this:

$categories=array();
$sql="SELECT DISTINCT category FROM table WHERE category!=''";
$result=mysql_query($sql);
while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
$categories[]=$row['category'];
}

--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

[Toby A Inkster]

Geoff Berrow wrote:

$sql="SELECT DISTINCT category FROM table WHERE category!=''";

Although tempting to use, SELECT DISTINCT is normally a sign of a place
where things could be done better.

SELECT MIN(category) FROM table WHERE category!='' GROUP BY category;

will achieve the same effect, but on most databases will run slightly
faster. This is because SELECT DISTINCT effectively fetches rows and then
discards them, whereas GROUP BY only fetches the needed rows to begin with.

If you don't believe me, try using the "EXPLAIN" feature on your database
to see which is faster.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 104 days, 18:07.]

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