PHP Tutorial: Put MySQL ENUM values into drop down select box

Comments 11 Standard

If you have an ENUM field in your table schema then you don’t want to go through the hassle of re-writing out all of the different ENUM values when you do an online form or CMS update system. This piece of code will take all of your ENUM values and put them into a select box so the choices displayed in the drop down are always up to date.

$table_name = "your_table_name"
$column_name = "field_with_enum_options";

echo "<select name=\"$column_name\">";
$result = mysql_query("SELECT COLUMN_TYPE FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
    WHERE TABLE_NAME = '$table_name' AND COLUMN_NAME = '$column_name'")
or die (mysql_error());

$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$enumList = explode(",", str_replace("'", "", substr($row['COLUMN_TYPE'], 5, (strlen($row['COLUMN_TYPE'])-6))));

foreach($enumList as $value)
    echo "<option value=\"$value\">$value</option>";

echo "</select>";
enumList

Want to use a function instead? Try this:

function enumDropdown($table_name, $column_name, $echo = false)
{
   $selectDropdown = "<select name=\"$column_name\">";
   $result = mysql_query("SELECT COLUMN_TYPE FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
       WHERE TABLE_NAME = '$table_name' AND COLUMN_NAME = '$column_name'")
   or die (mysql_error());

    $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
    $enumList = explode(",", str_replace("'", "", substr($row['COLUMN_TYPE'], 5, (strlen($row['COLUMN_TYPE'])-6))));

    foreach($enumList as $value)
         $selectDropdown .= "<option value=\"$value\">$value</option>";

    $selectDropdown .= "</select>";

    if ($echo)
        echo $selectDropdown;

    return $selectDropdown;
}
enumList

11 thoughts on “PHP Tutorial: Put MySQL ENUM values into drop down select box”

  1. Thanks for this tutorial although there’s a minor problem in your sql : the variables with tablename and columnname are inversed.

    Never the less, this saved me some time of trial and error.

    Thx.

  5. Reblogged this on dayuloli and commented:
    This is a great tutorial for anything wanting to effortlessly put all ENUM values in their MySQL database field into a drop-down list. I am using this to make a list of countries.

  6. You should specify the TABLE_SCHEMA also if your MySQL install has more than one database type. You could have a column with the same name in another database that is not type ENUM, and it could cause problems.

    $result = mysql_query(“SELECT COLUMN_TYPE FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
    WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = ‘$db_name’ AND TABLE_NAME = ‘$table_name’ AND COLUMN_NAME = ‘$column_name'”)
    or die (mysql_error());

    Also, I realize that this is old and just a tutorial, but we should no longer be using the mysql_ libraries, as they are deprecated. Use MySQLi or a PDO abstraction layer.

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