Loading Select List from DB using PHP

Hi;

I'm having some problems with this, and can't find a web reference I understand. I'm new to web programming and PHP.

I know this is quite simple, but what I want to do is populate a select pulldown menu from a database when the user selects what field they are looking for.

Here's the form html code:

<div id="HexCForm"><form name="HexCalc">
 Select: <select name="HCFS1" onchange="LoadHexForm(this.value)">
<option>*</option>
<option>SourceUID</option>
<option>SourceName</option>
<option>SourceFlag1</option>
<option>DestUID</option>
<option>DestName</option>
<option>DestFlag1</option>
</select><br>
Search String: <div id = "HCFSearch"><select name="HCFS2">



</select>

Code (markup):

and the client side AJAX script

function LoadHexForm(str)  {

xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
    
    xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
  {
  if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
    {
    document.getElementById("HexCForm.HCFSearch").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
    }
  }
  xmlhttp.open("GET","loadlist.php?q="+str,true);
  xmlhttp.send();
  
  }

Code (markup):

and finally, the PHP script (with db connection stuff stripped out)

$query = mssql_query("Select Distinct ".$q." from MasterCombatLog");

// WHERE LEFT(SOURCEUID,11)='0x040000000'");

if (!mssql_num_rows($query)) {
    echo 'No records found';
} else {

while ($row = mssql_fetch_assoc($query)) {

$string = $row['.$q.'];

echo "<option>-".$string."-</option>";
}
}
mssql_free_result($query);

Code (markup):

Thanks for any assistance

 

Please read this!

http://blog.chapagain.com.np/using-jquery-ajax-populate-selection-list/