Display vs POST info in a mysql based dropdown

[itgranny]

I have a mysql table where the columns are id, name, username and password.

 

I have it working so that names are in the dropdown, its its posting it, but is there a way to make it display the name, yet post the id?  The following is what I have done, it works, but the id is just a number and means nothing to the user. When I trade that out for name, the user is able to read and understand it, but some of the names have spaces, punctuation ect, and I would like to have it to be able to look up the username and password once the main table is to be updated. 

$sql = "SELECT * FROM stud ORDER BY studName";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
echo "<td>  <select name='id'>";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
echo "<option style='text-transform: uppercase;'" . $row['id'] . "'id='dropdown' >" . $row['id'] . "</option>";
}

echo "</select></td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td><input id='submit' name='submit' type='submit' value='Submit'></td></tr></table> </form>";

basically what I want is this but I can't get this to work. 

$sql = "SELECT * FROM stud ORDER BY studName";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
echo "<td>  <select name='id'>";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
echo "<option style='text-transform: uppercase;'" . $row['id'] . "'id='dropdown' >" . $row['name'] . "</option>";
}

echo "</select></td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td><input id='submit' name='submit' type='submit' value='Submit'></td></tr></table> </form>";

[Barand]

if you have

<option value='$id'>$name</option>

then the name is displayed but the id (value) is posted.

[benanamen]

The problem is your missing value=" " (I think that's what @Barand was pointing out.)

 

You can also clean up your php by letting Mysql do the uppercase

 

SELECT id,UPPER(name) FROM stud ORDER BY studName 

 

​and by using parenthesis instead of escaping your variables.

echo "<option value=\"{$row['id']}\" id=\"dropdown\" >{$row['name']}</option>";

Edited October 7, 2015 by benanamen