Magento Save Selected Country - magento

Question

I want to add another dropdown list of countries in customer account register page.I tried
<?php echo $this->getCountryHtmlSelect() ?>
But this doesn't display the dropdown.Another one I tried is
<select name="partner_country" id="partner_country">
<option value=''>– Please Select –</option>
<?php foreach($_countries as $_country): ?>
<option value="<?php echo $_country->getId() ?>"><?php echo $_country->getName() ?></option>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</select>
This one displays country list, but the selected country doesn't show up in backend customer information page.
I know getCountryHtmlSelect() renders dropdown of countries.Do I have create similar method in my module to save the selected country?
Update
I already created a source model while adding this attribute via setup script,
$installer->addAttribute('customer_address','partner_country_id',array(
'type' => 'varchar',
'label' => 'Partner Country',
'input' => 'select',
'source' => 'wholesale/attribute_source_partnercountry',
'global' => 1,
'visible' => 1,
'required' => 0,
'visible_on_front' => 1,
'sort_order'=>220
));
Source model
class Company_Wholesale_Model_Attribute_Source_Partnercountry extends Mage_Eav_Model_Entity_Attribute_Source_Table
{
public function getAllOptions()
{
if (!$this->_options) {
$this->_options = Mage::getResourceModel('directory/country_collection')
->loadByStore($this->getAttribute()->getStoreId())->toOptionArray();
}
return $this->_options;
}
}
config.xml
<config>
<global>
<resources>
<wholesale_setup>
<setup>
<module>Company_Wholesale</module>
<class>Company_Wholesale_Model_Entity_Setup</class>
</setup>
<connection>
<use>core_setup</use>
</connection>
</wholesale_setup>
</resources>
</global>
</config>

Answer 1

The issue you have is related to type of attribute you've created. For making possible selection of your custom attribute in the admin, you need to create/update it with type 'select' and 'source_model' for it. For this purpose using of customer module setup model is required, so in your module configuration of setup resources you need to specify it:
<config>
<global>
<resources>
<your_module_setup>
<setup>
<class>Mage_Customer_Model_Resource_Setup</class>
<module>Your_Module</module>
</setup>
</your_module_setup>
</resources>
</global>
</config>
And in your setup file, you need to create/modify your attribute. (If attribute exists, current code snippet will modify it, instead of creation).
<?php
$this->startSetup();
$this->addAttribute('customer', 'partner_country' , array(
'type' => 'varchar',
'label' => 'Partner Country',
'input' => 'select',
'source' => 'customer/entity_address_attribute_source_country'
));
$this->endSetup();
UPDATED:
Now I got your question, you haven't added your attribute to customer create account form, so your attribute is filtered out from data that is set to customer model during account creation process.
So you simply need to specify your customer attribute for the form where it should be possible to save your attribute.
Currently there are such forms available:
customer_account_create - Register Form
customer_account_edit - Change Account Details Form
checkout_register - Registering new account during checkout
For adding your custom attribute to form, just create one more setup script, that add a record with form code and your attribute id to table called customer/form_attribute:
<?php
$this->startSetup();
$attributeId = $this->getAttributeId('customer', 'partner_country_id');
$data = array(
array('attribute_id' => $attributeId, 'form_code' => 'customer_account_create'),
array('attribute_id' => $attributeId, 'form_code' => 'customer_account_edit'),
array('attribute_id' => $attributeId, 'form_code' => 'checkout_register')
);
$this->getConnection()->insertMultiple($this->getTable('customer/form_attribute'), $data);
$this->endSetup();
Just opt-out the forms you don't need.

Answer 2

If you would like to usegetCountryHtmlSelect(), then you should give it some parameters so that it can apply to your attribute, and not countryby default. For the register form, it could give something like this :
echo $this->getCountryHtmlSelect($this->getFormData()->getPartnerCountryId(), 'partner_country_id', 'partner_country', $this->__('Partner Country'))
And in the second example, you use partner_country in select name, whereas you created a partner_country_id attribute.