PHP + form select options

I have a select that looks like this, it is written in in HTML and is not rendered via any php,

    <select name="position">                                           
<option value="left">Left</option>
    <option value="right">Right</option>
    <option value="centre">Centre</option>
    </select>

The value gets sent to database and later on gets returned from the database as a variable in the form of $v['position'], using this and my original form how can I make the optio开发者_StackOverflown that matches the varibale the default selection?

You didn't specify when the form displayed again. If immediately when user is submitted the form, you need to insert this snippet to every option:

<option value="left"<?php echo $v['position'] == 'left' ? ' selected' : ''; ?>>Left</option>
<option value="right"<?php echo $v['position'] == 'right' ? ' selected' : ''; ?>>Right</option>
<option value="centre"<?php echo $v['position'] == 'centre' ? ' selected' : ''; ?>>Centre</option>

OR:

You must iterate through variables via PHP :(

$html = '<select name="position">';

$opts = array('left', 'right', 'centre');
foreach($opts as $option)
{
    $html .= '<option value="' . $option . '"';
    $html .= $option == $v['position'] . ' selected' : '';
    $html .= '>' . ucfirst($option) . '</option>';
}
$html .= '</select>';

print $html;

You can create the options in a loop and check whether the current element equals the value in $v['position'] and set the selected attribute accordingly.

<?php
$options = array('left'=>'Left', 'right'=>'Right', 'centre'=>'Centre');
?>

<select name="position">      
<?php foreach($options as $value=>$text):?>                                     
    <option value="<?php echo $value ?>" 
            <?php echo ($v['position'] == $value) ? 'selected="selected"' : '' ?> >
            <?php echo $text ?>
    </option>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</select>

You can do it with DOM without having to touch your HTML. If this is your HTML:

$template = <<< TPL
<select name="position">
    <option value="left">Left</option>
    <option value="right">Right</option>
    <option value="centre">Centre</option>
</select>
TPL;

And this is the value that was selected:

$value = 'right';

You can do

$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadXml($template);
$xPath = new DOMXPath($dom);
$node = $xPath->query(sprintf('//option[@value = "%s"]', $value));
if($node->item(0)) {
    $node->item(0)->setAttribute('selected', 'selected');
}
echo $dom->saveXML($dom->documentElement);

And that will output:

<select name="position">
    <option value="left">Left</option>
    <option value="right" selected="selected">Right</option>
    <option value="centre">Centre</option>
</select>

try this

<select name="position">                                           
    <option value="left" <?php echo $v['position']=='left'?'selected="selected"':'' ?> >Left</option>
    <option value="right" <?php echo $v['position']=='right'?'selected="selected"':'' ?>>Right</option>
    <option value="centre" <?php echo $v['position']=='centre'?'selected="selected"'?:'' >>Centre</option>
</select>

<select name="position">                                            
    <option value="left"<?php echo ($v['position'] == 'left') ? ' selected="selected" : ''; ?>>Left</option> 
    <option value="right"<?php echo ($v['position'] == 'right') ? ' selected="selected" : ''; ?>>Right</option> 
    <option value="centre"<?php echo ($v['position'] == 'centre') ? ' selected="selected" : ''; ?>>Centre</option> 
</select>