Remembering multiple selections

Hi there,

I have a very simple problem that I'm struggling with... I am trying to use hidden fields to remember user choices from a select list. I must not be getting something, because my code prints the 2nd to last choice the user made, whereas I want to print ALL choices the user has made:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use CGI qw(:standard);
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

print header;
print start_html("colors");

print "<form action='colors.pl' method='POST'>";
print "<select name='color'>";
print "<option value='red'> Red";
print "<option value='green'> Green";
print "<option value='blue'> Blue";
print "<option value='gold'> Gold";
print "</select>";

@color = param('color');
foreach $color (@color) {print "<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor'

value='$color'>";}

print "<input type='submit'>";

print "</form>";

@hiddencolors = param('hiddencolor');

print "@hiddencolors";

print end_html;

try changing the select tag:

print "<select name='color'>";

change to:

print "<select name='color' MULTIPLE>";

try changing the select tag:

print "<select name='color'>";

change to:

print "<select name='color' MULTIPLE>";

That does work, but technically, it should be:
print "<select name='color' multiple='multiple'>";

Thanks for the reply. I tried that, and all it seems to do is lengthen the select menu. The outcome is still the same :(

Did you submit it a second time?

Since you're wanting the hidden fields which are not defined until after you submit, they won't be there until you submit more than once.

You mean hit the submit button multiple times? Yes.

Make your selection and submit

Make another selection and submit

After the 2nd submit, you should see the selections from the 1st submit.

Yes, that is what is happening. What I would like to happen is after the first submit, the first choice is displayed. After the second submit, the first and second choice are displayed, and so on...

That does work, but technically, it should be:
print "<select name='color' multiple='multiple'>";

Fish,

What is your reference for that? As far as I know MULTIPLE is one of those few html attributes that does not have a value, like NOWRAP and maybe a few others.

Multiple
[2|3|3.2|4] [X1|X1.1] [IE1|M2A1|N1|O2.1]
Standards Details: In all HTML 4.x/XHTML DTDs
Required? No
Description:
This attribute indicates that more than one option can be selected at one time to be included in the return value to the form processing script.
Values: NA

I'd need to a little searching (possible in the rfc's) for a more official source, but this is one reference.

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_select.asp

Thats interesting, I have never seen that before in all my years of writing HTML code. I always used multiple with no value and it works, still does. Just tried it with the above script and FireFox 3.5 and it works fine.

But anyway, a validator says the html output is full of errors anyway.

Did you try it under strict DTD? I haven't myself, but I think strict will say that it needs the value.

Not that this does exactly what the OP wants but it does get rid of all the HTML errors:




#!usr/bin/perl

use CGI qw(:standard);
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
@color = param('color');
@hiddencolors = param('hiddencolor');
print header;
print start_html("colors"),
start_form(),
scrolling_list(-name=>'color',
-values=>['Red','Green','Blue','Gold'],
-default=>['Pick A Color'],
-size=>5,
-multiple=>'true');
foreach $color (@color) {
print "<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor' value='$color'>";
}
print submit(),end_form();
print "@hiddencolors";
print end_html;

and it does output this:

<select name="color" size="5" multiple="multiple">

So thanks for the tip Fish.