Marking <select> option as "selected" based on another array.

That thread title is probably clear as mud. Let me try to do better in my explanation.

I am using PHP to create a form <select> field based on an existing array ($popular_articles). Since I want to use the same form for both creating a new submission, as well as editing an existing submission, I've added an if statement that checks to see if the url var ($_GET['date']) exists. If it does, it runs an additional bit of code to mark the previously selected articles as "selected".

Here's a snippet of code to illustrate what I'm doing:



As you can see above, I tried using unset() to remove the first array value once it has been selected. Thus, on the next loop, the <select> box will mark the next item in $popular_articles_selected as "selected". At least in theory, since it's not working. It works when I simply hardcode the unset() line after the array creation, but once it's in the loop, it's like it's rebuilding the array each time.

The result is that I end up with 3 select boxes all of which have the same article selected. I need them to each have one of the articles stored in $popular_articles_selected.

Does that make any sense at all?

$popular_articles_selected[$article_ID]

If $article_ID is 312, that snip would refer to index 312 of $popular_articles_selected, which doesn't exist.

You want something more like

unset($popular_articles_selected[array_search($article_ID, $popular_articles_selected)]);

Though this isn't how I'd do it.

Don't be shy...

I tried what you provided and it does indeed stop all of the selects from using the same article. However, after selecting one for the first dropdown, the others are left without any articles selected.

EDIT: Further investigation shows that it is always "selecting" the last element in the $popular_articles_selected array. If I reverse sort the array before running the above code, it does select another element for the first box, but the second box is still left "unselected."

I assume this is because unset is unsetting the last item in the array, and since there are no more items in the array for the next dropdown to display, it is showing as blank?

I would keep a pointer to the selected_articles array, then ++ it at the end of your loop along with $counter.

You're using stripslashes in this code, which says very bad things about your setup. Why?

Also, I don't know what this means:
Unless there's javascript or something in the page that you're not showing, this doesn't make sense.

Let me try that. I had ventured down this road before without success, but I'm willing to give it a shot if you think this is better practice.


I'm using this to prevent the escape slashes from showing on headlines that contain an apostrophe. For display only. Can you explain why this is bad?


Let me try again. In the example I gave above, 3 dropdown boxes are created by the loop ($max_articles=3). When I added your code, the first of these dropdowns has an article selected (<option value='94' selected>). The other two dropdowns default back to the placeholder option (<option data-placeholder='true'>Choose an article...</option>), with nothing marked as the selected item.

I appreciate your help, as always.

Strip_slashes only works on code which has magic_quotes or addslashes in it, both of which are wrong and ancient. If you have escaped quotes in your database, you're probably inserting it wrong.

Working version of your code:

This won't work if $_GET['date'] isn't set, just like your original code.

Works like a charm. You version is just slightly different than the one I was working up, but I like how you used the pointer whereas I was just using a counter with a while statement. Yours is shorter, cleaner, and frankly, I trust you more than I trust myself, so I've implemented your version.

The issue with it using the last array value wasn't actually valid. I was querying the database wrong... had it sorting DESC instead of ASC, which in turn, reversed the order of the array values.


I'll dig around on this some more. This is an older site that I'm adding some functionality to, and I don't do this all the time, so I may be a bit out of date. The headlines are added to the database using mysql_real_escape_string(). I'll do some research to learn more about the deprecation of this that you are referencing.

Also, since you mentioned magic quotes, I was pretty sure they were on this server from what I remember. Just ran a test using:



and it confirmed that they are indeed on this server. We are using the default Bluehost setup.

If magic quotes are on, that's a pretty bad thing. They were officially deprecated more than a decade ago and have been solidly on the "worst practices" list for nearly that long. I would call your host or even switch hosts.