Im pretty new to PHP coding. I've been working with a script that is used to search through member profiles. I need to add a drop-down field to the search form - but I'm not exactly sure what to do.

An example of the current code ,that is used for a field similar to what I want to add, is this

PHP Code:

             $TXT[12] = file("".$VAR[5]."/inc/txt/country.txt");
                    $TXT[14] = "";
                    foreach ($TXT[12] as $TXT[13])
                    {
                        $TXT[13] = trim($TXT[13]);
                        $SLT[4] = "";
                        if (isset($_GET['location'])) { if ($_GET['location'] == $TXT[13]) { $SLT[4] = " selected"; } } 


Basically, all I understand, thus far, with this section of coding is where the file it is retrieving the drop-down information is located. I don't fully understand the use of the numbers in the $TXT commands.

As for creating a drop menu to search it would help to know what you want in the drop down menu, like is it dynamic data or fixed? And how is it stored, file or database?

As for your example im a little confused by it.

PHP Code:

$TXT[12] = file("".$VAR[5]."/inc/txt/country.txt");
                    $TXT[14] = "";
                    foreach ($TXT[12] as $TXT[13])
                    {
                        $TXT[13] = trim($TXT[13]);
                        $SLT[4] = "";
                        if (isset($_GET['location'])) { if ($_GET['location'] == $TXT[13]) { $SLT 


Usually I would load the file to $TXT like this:

PHP Code:

$TXT = file("".$VAR[5]."/inc/txt/country.txt"); 


Which would put the contents of country.txt into an array.

So if in country.txt you have:

USA
United Kingdom
Canada

$TXT would equal the following:
$TXT[0] = "USA";
$TXT[1] = "United Kingdom";
$TXT[2] = "Canada";

Basically the numbers are the index in the array. By using [] you are accessing an item in an array. If you dont know what an array is, its a collection of whatever type you assign, eg int, string, object. PHP isnt fussy about object types. Think of it like a bookcase, at the left is book[0] on the right is book[10], book[0] might equal "harry potter", book[10] = "something else".

To clean up your existing code I would use the following:

PHP Code:

$TXT = file("".$VAR[5]."/inc/txt/country.txt");
         $TXT[14] = ""; // maybe an entry you dont want?
          foreach ($TXT as $location)
                    {
                        $location = trim($location);
                        $SLT[4] = ""; // dont know what that is?
                        if (isset($_GET['location'])) { if ($_GET['location'] == $location) { $SLT[4] = " selected"; } } 


Hope that helps.

The information for the drop menu is coming from a static text file.
I was looking back through the code (where I pulled the above portion from) and found out what that the $STL is supposed to be an array

PHP Code:

    $TXT = array();
    $SLT = array(); 


For the first piece of coding this secions come before it in the PHP file

PHP Code:

                        if (isset($_GET['location']))
                        {
                            if ($_GET['location'] != '') 
                            {
                                $LINKS .= "&location=".$_GET["location"]."";
                                $_GET['location'] = str_replace("_"," ",$_GET['location']);
                                $DATABASE .= " AND `location` = '$_GET[location]'";
                            }
                        } 


and

this is how the author printed it out within the form

PHP Code:

<table style="width:100%;">
<tr>
<td style="width:25%;font-size:8pt;" class="color">

<label for="location"><u>L</u>ocation:</label>
    <div style="padding-top:5px;padding-left:5px;">
        <select name="location" id="location" style="width:120px;">
        <option value="">Any</option>
$TXT[14] </select>
    </div> 


Maybe that'll make a little more sense; as to what is happening withe file.