Enter ID instead of name on submit (form)

post user ID when name selected from dropdown

[scankified]

In my activities table, I have a user ID and a project ID. When a user (of admin level) creates an activity they select from a drop down menu a project. Here is the select query to draw up appropriate values:

$sql = "SELECT usersprojects_tb.projectid, projects.projectname FROM projects INNER JOIN usersprojects on projects.projectid = usersprojects.projectid WHERE usersprojects.userid = '".$_SESSION['SESS_USERID']."'";

And for the <option> tag with the dropdown menu, I have this:

<?php echo $row['projectname']?> 

I have tried submitting the form with 'projectid' here instead and the project ID is stored successfully in my activies table. However, the user needs to see the project names (IDs arent exactly user-friendly!) And with 'projectname' as displayed, they can select the names of the available projects (to associate an activity with) but the project ID is not stored, how I link this up, so that when the project name is sent, the ID for this project is stored properly in my activities table.

I'm also having the exact same problem with the users drop down. As the admin user selects a user from the drop down to assign the task to. I exactly what I want, but I think I may be using the wrong syntax! Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.

[nickCR]

If I understand your question right this is a very basic solution.

<select name="mySelectBox">
<option value="<?=$row['projectid']?>"><?=$row['projectname']?></option>
</select>

Basically this represents each option with text but what is submitted is the actual id for each text option.

[rocknbil]

Well that's sorta right, but the options need to be in the while loop and the select element cannot be.

$optionList = '<select name="project' id="project">'; 
// 
while ($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) { 
 $optionList .= '<option value="' . $row['projectid'] . '"'; 
 if (isset($_POST['project']) and ($_POST['project']==$row['projectid'])) { 
 $optionList .= ' selected'; // or selected="selected" for XHTML 
 } 
 $optionList .= '>' . $row['projectname'] . '</option>'; 
} 
// 
$optionList .= '</select>'; 
// 
echo $optionList; 

Better yet, put that in a function, store it in a single variable.