redisplaying drop down selection

[jim.davidson]

I have a dropdown menu in a form that list different school types along with an option for other.  When other is selected, a text field appears for user input.  I got this part to work.  The problem is if there was an error somewhere else on the form how do  I redisplay the form with that  option selected? Also if the user chose 'other' how to I redisplay that text field?  Any help will be appreciated. 

 

Here's the code

 

<td colspan="3">Type of School   

            <select name="type_of_school" class="text_background" id="type_of_school"onchange="(this.value==7) ? document.getElementById('newSchoolLbl').style.display='' : document.getElementById('newSchoolLbl').style.display='none'">

              <option value="">Please Select</option>

              <?php  do {  ?>

              <option value="<?php echo $row_getType_of_school['school_type_id']?>"><?php echo $row_getType_of_school['school_description']?></option>

              <?php } while ($row_getType_of_school = mysql_fetch_assoc($getType_of_school));  $rows = mysql_num_rows($getType_of_school);

              if($rows > 0) {  mysql_data_seek($getType_of_school, 0);

  $row_getType_of_school = mysql_fetch_assoc($getType_of_school);  } ?>

              </select>

            <label style="display:none" id="newSchoolLbl">Enter Your School Type: <input type="text" name="newSchool" class="text_background">

            </label>

</td>

[ober]

You have to look at whatever is being passed in the URL.  So once you submit, you probably have something like:

 

www.whatever.com/page.php?req=submit&field1=5&field2=blah

 

So in your display of the answer options, you just say:

 

// $current_option would be the value from the row you are entering into the answer options
$selected = "";
if($_POST['field2'] == '".$current_option."')
{
    $selected = " selected";
}

echo '<option value="'.$row_getType_of_school['school_type_id'].'" '.$selected.'>'.$row_getType_of_school['school_description'].'</option>';

[jim.davidson]

Maybe I didn't explain my problem correctly.  I'm sure you all have filled a form on line and forgot to enter something.  There's nothing more annoying then to have to enter everything over again because you missed on field.  So I want to capture everything that was entered and repopulate the fields for the users second attempt to correctly fill the form. I can get everything except for this on condition, that being I have a dropdown list and one of the options on the list is "Other" if the user chooses other then a text field appears and the user enters their description of other.  So I need to be able to reload and display what they they entered there if they forgot to enter something in a required field elsewhere.  I hope this better explains what I'm trying to do.