Create a Dropdown menu in Php

[liveproject101]

I want to create a drop down menu in php for my local host and tried following, But using it The drop down menu appears, but is blank, and has no options.

  <?php
    session_start();
    //if the session data has been set, then the variable $sv_02 is defined 
    //as the data held in the session under that name, otherwise it is blank
    if (isset($_SESSION['sv_02'])) {$sv_02=$_SESSION['sv_02'];} else {$sv_02="";}
    //define the array
    $dm_sv_02 = array('-Year','-2012','-2011','-2010','-2009');
    //create the function 
    function dropdown($dropdownoptions, $session_data) 
    { 
    foreach($dropdownoptions as $dropdownoption){
           if($session_data == $dropdownoption){
            echo '<option value="' . $dropdownoption . '" selected>' . $dropdownoption . '</option>';
           } else {
            echo '<option value="' . $dropdownoption . '">' . $dropdownoption . '</option>';
           }
          }
    }
    //echo the HTML needed to create a drop down, and populate it with 
    //the function which should create the <option> elements
    echo '<select name="sv_02">';
    dropdown($dm_sv_02, $sv_02);
    echo '</select>';
    ?>

*****

[arnage]

Here is a way without using function and with ternary.

$arrays = array('one', 'two', 'three', 'four'); 

    echo '<select name="set" title="Select">'."\n"; 
        foreach ($arrays as $array) { 
            echo '<option value="'.$array.'"'.($session_data == $array ? ' selected="selected">' : '>').$array.'</option>'."\n"; 
        } 
    echo '</select>'."\n"; 

[CreativityKills]

I know what you are trying to achieve, but some pointers before i give you a working snippet. Try making your codes more readable. All i see above are an unreadable bunch. Make your variables and array keys english words that can be easily read not "sv_02" which means nothing to anyone but yourself.

Anyways I created a nifty little function that could help keep your code DRY. You can reuse this function to generate select dropdowns on any occassion as it supports it all. Although i wanted to include support for "optgroup" but i sense that would be an overkill. So enjoy.

<?php

// Start PHP session
session_start();

// Get the selected form field from the session data if saved
$selected_year = isset($_SESSION['selected_year']) ? $_SESSION['selected_year'] : '';

// Generate the years list to use for drop downs, you might
// want to look into creating this list using something like PHP
// "range" function instead of manually generating each year.
$years_list = array(
    '' => 'Year',
    '2012' => '2012',
    '2011' =>  '2011',
    '2010' => '2010',
    // ...and the list goes on...
);

// Get the HTML years list and stuff.
echo form_select('birthday_year', $years_list, $selected_year);

/**
 * Generate an HTML select list.
 *
 * <code>
 *    echo form_select('gender', array('m' => 'Male', 'f' => 'Female'), 'm');
 * </code>
 * 
 * @param string $name 
 * @param  array  $options    
 * @param  string|null $selected
 * @param array $attributes  
 * @return string                 
 */
function form_select($name, $options, $selected = false, $attributes = array())
{
    // If the options are not empty we'll iterate through each option and
    // add them to the select form that is being generated.
    if ( ! empty($options))
    {
        $name = htmlentities($name);

        $attributes = ( ! empty($attributes) ? $attributes : '');

        // The attributes of the select form will be checked and aggregated
        // after which they are put in the select tag, you can use this to
        // pass custom classes and id for the tag.
        if (is_array($attributes))
        {
            $the_attributes = '';

            foreach ($attributes as $key => $value)
            {
                $the_attributes .= htmlentities($key).'='.htmlentities($value).' ';
            }

            $attributes = $the_attributes;
        }

        $html = '<select name="'.$name.'" '.$attributes.'>'.PHP_EOL;

        foreach ($options as $key => $value)
        {
            $selected = ($key == $selected ? 'selected' : '');

            $html .= '<option value="'.htmlentities($key).'" '.$selected.'>'.htmlentities($value).'</option>'.PHP_EOL;
        }

        $html .= '</select>'.PHP_EOL;

        return $html;
    }

    return '';
}