ok i have auto complete that i want to be able to select a column of the database before searching on it i just want to pass the oneone variable over to the php page. so i have this javascript <script type="text/javascript"> $().ready(function() { function log(event, data, formatted) { $("<li>").html( !data ? "No match!" : "Selected: " + formatted).appendTo("#result"); } $("#search").autocomplete("test.php", { width: 260, selectFirst: false }); $("#search").result(function(event, data, formatted) { if (data) $(this).parent().next().find("input").val(data[1]); }); $(":text, textarea").result(log).next().click(function() { $(this).prev().search(); // shows resluts }); }); </script> Code (markup): the html <p class="field" > <select id="oneone" name="oneone" style="width:100px;margin:5px 0 5px 0;" value=""> <option value="s_last">Last Name</option> <option value="s_first">First Name</option> <label>Search</label> <input type="text" id="search" /> </p> <p> <label>Hidden input</label> <input type="text" id="inputit" /> Code (markup):