repopulating the select list generated from database in codeigniter - codeigniter

Question

Hi. I have the form in which I use form_validation If the user make any mistake (leave some required fields empty), user is redirected back to the form, and the form has been re-populated. All works, except my select , which is generated from the database.
Here is my code from the view:
echo "<select name='parentid'" . set_value("parentid"). ">";
echo '<option value = "0">None</option>';
foreach ($faq_categories as $row => $option) {
echo "<option value=" . $option['catid'] . ">" . $option['categoryname']. "</option>";
}
echo '</select>';
Here is my controller code:
public function displayAddFaqCategoryForm($error = null)
{
$data['title'] = "Add new FAQ Category";
$data['main_content'] = 'addFaqCategory';
$selectWhat = array('tname' => 'faq_categories',
'sortby'=> 'catid',
'how' => 'asc'
);
$this->load->model('selectRecords');
$data['faq_categories'] = $this->selectRecords->selectAllRecords($selectWhat);
$this->load->vars($data);
$this->load->view('backOffice/template');
} // end of function displayAddFaqCategoryForm
And here is the model code:
public function selectAllRecords($selectWhat = array())
{
$data = array();
$tname = $selectWhat['tname'];
$sortby = $selectWhat['sortby'];
$how = $selectWhat['how'];
$this->db->order_by($sortby,$how);
$query = $this->db->get($tname);
if($query->num_rows() > 0)
{
foreach($query->result_array() as $row)
{
$data[] = $row;
}
}
$query->free_result();
return $data;
} // end of function selectAllRecords
I am not getting any error messages, just the select is not repopulated with last used. Any help will be deeply appreciated.

Answer 1

You're using set_value() incorrectly
echo "<select name='parentid'" . set_value("parentid"). ">";
It's meant to output the actual value (for text inputs). This would produce something like:
<select name='parentid'ActualValue>
Which is not how a <select> element is populated, and is invalid HTML. See the correct usage in the Form Helper docs.
You can use set_select(), and it goes on your <option>:
foreach ($faq_categories as $row => $option) {
echo "<option value=".form_prep($option['catid']).'"';
echo set_select('parentid', $option['catid']); // outputs selected="selected"
echo ">".html_escape($option['categoryname'])."</option>";
}
I've taken a few other liberties with your code here as you can see, to be on the safe side (always).
If this is too much of a mess, you might be interested in the form_dropdown() function.