Quite often when you are developing web sites or applications it is necessary to create a drop down list box that contains entries from a database table. You can, of course, hard code the items in the drop down list box, but this isn't really very elegant, and can create problems if the entries in the database table change at a later date. It is much better to extract the entries from the database table directly and then populate the drop down list box using those entries.

Creating the database table

The following script, database-table.sql, could typically be used to create a database table (called 'years') that contains, for example, a list of years. These will be the entries that appear in the drop down list box.

database-table.sql

create table years
(  yearID integer auto_increment,
year varchar(30),
primary key (yearID)
);

insert into years (yearID, year) values ('1', '2007-2008');
insert into years (yearID, year) values ('2', '2008-2009');
insert into years (yearID, year) values ('3', '2009-2010');
insert into years (yearID, year) values ('4', '2010-2011');
insert into years (yearID, year) values ('5', '2011-2012');
insert into years (yearID, year) values ('6', '2012-2013');

The following PHP script (populate-list.php), which would form part of a form, will extract all the entries from the 'years' database table, and use them to populate the drop down list box.

populate-list.php

If the entries in the database table change at some stage in the future, those changes will be automatically reflected in the drop down list box in the form.

John Dixon is a web developer working through his own company John Dixon Technology. In addition to providing web development services, John's company also provides a free accounting tool called Earnings Tracker, as well as other free software downloads, various tutorials, articles, a business and finance blog and several news feeds.