some advice...

djbryson has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

ok, so I have a perl form. It reads in an HTML template file. Right now i'm populating a drop down like so
HTML template:

 <select name=s_dept onchange="sub_form('dept')">
       <option>Choose Dept</option>            
       <TMPL_LOOP DEPT_LOOP>
       <option><TMPL_VAR DEPT></option>
       </TMPL_LOOP>
</select>
[download]

And then in my perl file I query a database, ... put that into an array. then

     my @dept_loop;
     foreach my $dept (@dept) {
      push(@dept_loop, {DEPT => $dept}); 


%formparams = ( DEPT_LOOP => \@dept_loop,  );<br> 
# there are other elements i left out that are irrelvant.
[download]

then create my form after that... Anyway, that's all working fine. I populate the drop downs fine. But now I want to read 2 fields in from the database into a hash i suppose(ID and NAME). Populate the <option> tag with the NAME and the value="" parm with the ID. So, whatever they click I have the ID, submit the form. Then do a query to build the 2nd drop down. Select NAME2, ID2 from X where id = $id; Sound good? I'm just not sure what approach to take. I don't think I can use the TMPL_LOOP anymore. Maybe I can do everything in the perl file and just stick variables for the dropdowns in the HTML template. Some notes. I have to read in the template. I can't change it to be all the same file. I'd like to, cause it would be easier for me, but can't. I'm a perl newb, so keep that in mind too.

Comment on some advice... Select or Download Code

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Re: some advice... by friedo (Prior) on Mar 23, 2007 at 04:29 UTC
You should be able to do what you want by just using more variables in your template: `<select name="s_dept" onchange="sub_form('dept')"> <option>Choose Dept</option> <TMPL_LOOP DEPT_LOOP> <option value="<TMPL_VAR ID>"><TMPL_VAR NAME></option> </TMPL_LOOP> </select>` [download] (Naturally you have to make sure both ID and NAME are in the hash that you push onto DEPT_LOOP.) You could also use a TMPL_IF conditional to control display of the second menu. If the second menu array is there, it will show, but if it's empty, the conditional will fail.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: some advice... by djbryson (Beadle) on Mar 23, 2007 at 14:20 UTC
so populate the template vars like so: `push @dept_loop, {ORG_ID => $key, ORG_NAME => $hasho{$key}};` [download] Thanks man, that worked!!	[reply] [d/l]
Re: some advice... by f00li5h (Chaplain) on Mar 23, 2007 at 12:32 UTC
CGI::FormBuilder is an answer to your problem, but not to your question. You still need to feed it the hashref of `value => label`, but it will do all the icky HTML whatnot for you. HTH `@_=qw; ask f00li5h to appear and remain for a moment of pretend better than a lifetime;;s;;@_[map hex,split'',B204316D8C2A4516DE];;y/05/os/&print;`	[reply] [d/l] [select]