Hey,

I'm working on a page that has a drop down menu dynamically built using data from a csv file. The csv file holds the filename & the description of a page.
The form is in the first cell of a table. I want to load the selected file text into the 2nd cell when the user clicks submit...
I am having a problem. It creates the dropdown menu without a problem.
When i click submit, it just reloads the same page, and resets the dropdown menu.
I'm not sure where my code is wrong.
Any suggestions??

 
<?php
#session_start(); 
$fh = fopen("inc/rant.inc","r")                    #has the filename & description
 or die ("File Not Found");
 while (!feof($fh))
 {
    $line[] = fgetcsv($fh);       
 }
fclose($fh);
 
if ($_POST)
{
 
//get the rant page they selected
$rantFileName = 'rant/'. $_Post["rantSelect"];
echo $rantFileName;
echo "<pre>";
print_r($_Post);
echo "</pre>";
 
 $fh2 = fopen("inc/rant.inc","r")
  or die ("Rant File Not Found");
  while (!feof($fh2))
  {
      $rantText = file_get_contents($fh2);
  }
 fclose($fh);
}
 
?>
<table align="left" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" border="2"  >
  <tr>
     <td>
    <FORM METHOD=post ACTION="rant.php">
            <CENTER>
            Select an rant:
    <SELECT id="rantSelect">
    <option id="empty">"Select the rant you want to read."</option>;
       <?php
            foreach($line as $record)   #this loads the array into the dropdown
              {
      $list = '<option id="'. $record[0] .'"';
                              if ($record[0] == $rantFileName)
                              {
                               $list .= ' selected ';
                              }
                              $list .= '>"'. $record[1] .'</option>';
      echo $list;
#                  echo $record[0] . " - " . $record[1] . "<br />";
             }
            ?>
            </SELECT><BR>
            <INPUT type="Submit" VALUE="Submit"   ></CENTER>
            </FORM>
    </td>
    <td>
       <? echo $rantText; ?>
 
    <!-- this is where it'll load the rant page that was selected. -->
    </td>
 </tr>
</table
<hr>

Your <option>'s don't have a value.
I think you're trying to use id for that purpose, but that isn't possible.

hmmmm. ok
I think i get what you mean, except that the dropdown menu does load the file info into it.
the <option id> = "file description" does populate the dropdown menu...
so if i change that to option value> ... would it then populate it & select it correctly?

Hmm, I didn't know ID was working as well.
Then that is not your problem.

I see now though, that you are doing something rather weird.

PHP Code:

$fh2 = fopen("inc/rant.inc","r")
  or die ("Rant File Not Found");
  while (!feof($fh2))
  {
      $rantText = file_get_contents($fh2);
  }
 fclose($fh); 


What you're doing is opening a file handler to a file.
Then while the pointer hasn't reached the end of the file on that handler, you try to read the whole file into a string by supplying file_get_contents with a file handler, but you should supply the filename.
This bit could just be replaced by:

PHP Code:

if(file_exists("inc/rant.inc")){
      $rantText = file_get_contents("inc/rant.inc");
}else{
      echo "File not found!";
} 


yep i see what you mean, my problem is that the file name will be different depending on what they selected.
and its a dynamic list, will change as I add new rant files...
but i think i still see the problem.. its loading the wrong file i think..

i'll have to take a closer look...

lol fixed it
it did need to be value instead of Id
and the first option id line, that needed to be option name
once i did those.. it works
thanks for your suggestion about the value... it helped me catch the name