How do I set the selected item in a drop down box

Solution 1:

You need to set the selected attribute of the correct option tag:

<option value="January" selected="selected">January</option>

Your PHP would look something like this:

<option value="January"<?=$row['month'] == 'January' ? ' selected="selected"' : '';?>>January</option>

I usually find it neater to create an array of values and loop through that to create a dropdown.

Solution 2:

You mark the selected item on the <option> tag, not the <select> tag.

So your code should read something like this:

<select>
    <option value="January"<?php if ($row[month] == 'January') echo ' selected="selected"'; ?>>January</option>
    <option value="February"<?php if ($row[month] == 'February') echo ' selected="selected"'; ?>>February</option>
    ...
    ...
    <option value="December"<?php if ($row[month] == 'December') echo ' selected="selected"'; ?>>December</option>
</select>

You can make this less repetitive by putting all the month names in an array and using a basic foreach over them.