Problem with dropdown menu populated from MySQL table

[hawkontvn]

Hey

I'm quite new to php and mysql so dont judge me too harsh please

 

I have a project going on - a book library website. The website is a three-column website which is supposed to have general stuff in the middle, ads on the right side, and login/search stuff on the left side. I'm using "include('x.php')" on my index.php to include the left and right columns onto the main site. At the moment im lost in how to fix the search stuff i'll be having on the left column of the site.

 

I'm trying to create a dropdown menu which populates itself with my "category" table from my database. Book categories are supposed to come down when you access the menu, and when you press a submit button after choosing a category, all books ('book'-table in my db) that are within that category are supposed to show up in my middle column of my index.php site. Any help would be appreciated. I'll post some of the code that I messed around with, but I doubt its any close to what would be best doing. Thanks in advance!

 

This is part of my 'left_col.php' which is included in index.php:

 

<h2>Quick search</h2>
                                <?php
                                $categories = mysql_query("SELECT categoryID AS ci,
                                    categoryName AS cn FROM category
                                    ORDER BY categoryName");

                                while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($categories))
                                {
                                    $id = $row['ci'];
                                    $cat = $row['cn'];
                                    $options.="<option value='$id'>".$cat."</option>";
                                }
                                ?>

                                <form method="get" action="/biblio/">
                                    <select name="showcat">
                                        <option value="">
                                            Choose category
                                            <?=$options?>
                                        </option>
                                    </select>
                                    <input type="submit" value="Search" />
                                </form>

                                <?
                                echo $_GET['showcat'];
                                ?>

 

And here is my index.php which probably is really wrong, since I can't get this thing working

 

<?php
                                $list_cats = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM category
                                    ORDER BY categoryName;");

                                while($row = mysql_fetch_array($list_cats))
                                {
                                    $cid = $row['categoryID'];
                                    $cname = $row['categoryName'];
                                }

                                if($_GET['showcat'])
                                {
                                    $cid = $_GET['showcat'];
                                    $cname = $_GET['showcat'];

                                    echo "<br /><p><b>Categories in our database:</b></p>";

                                    $res = mysql_query($list_cats) or die(mysql_error());

                                    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($res))
                                    {
                                        $cid = $row['categoryID'];
                                        $cname = $row['categoryName'];

                                        echo "????";
                                    }
                                }

                                ?>

 

Thanks for any help