You're violating the entire principle of HTML::Template in that code, that module is about removing all HTML from the perl script :). If you want to embed the HTML, I'd suggest you look at Template::Toolkit, HTML::Mason, or embed_perl which are all execellent modules.

With HTML::Template you'd want to use a <TMPL_LOOP ...> in your template file to generate the options. There are a few ways to approach the "selected", the easiest would be to also have a <TMPL_IF ...>selected</TMPL_IF> in the template triggered by the comparison in the script.

There's an HTML::Template help list you can subscribe to listed at the end of the POD for the module. Also check out the others listed, TMTOWTDI and YMMV with each.

Update:

As requested, a sample of what you'd want to do with this mod.

<!-- foo.tmpl -->

...
<select name="dropdown">
  <tmpl_loop name="menu">
    <option value="<tmpl_var name="item">" <tmpl_if name="selected">se
+lected</tmpl_if>><tmpl_var name="item">
  </tmpl_loop>
</select>
...
[download]

### foo.pl ###

my @menu;
push @menu, { item => $_, selected => $_ eq $state } for 1..6;
$t->param( menu => \@menu );
[download]

I love the idea of the module though the implementation can get a little yucky (tags in tags). I've been mucking around inside the module to play with different techniques for subbing in vars and you can customise it quite a bit (right now I'm mainly just suceeding in breaking it though :). Anyways, just incase that's too condenced for you I expanded the script part a bit (longer version not tested).

my @nums = (1..6);
my (@menu, %option, $selected);

foreach $x (@nums) {

  # Set selected to true if the state equals the current item.
  if ($state eq $x) {
    $selected = 1;
  }
  else {
    $selected = 0;
  }

  # Tell the option the item value and whether it's selected.
  my %option = { item => $x,
                 selected => $selected };

  # Put the option in the menu.
  push @menu, \%option;
}

# Send the menu to the template;
$t->param( menu => \@menu );
[download]

I agree with what you are saying but with the TMPL_LOOP I have to supply the vars script side.
I want to avoid that all together thats why I was looking for a better way.
-dwiz

There may be a better way, but we use the same technique Arguile presented.

The only other method we tried was to use JavaScript to set the selected option based on another input. Nice if you like JavaScript, but I prefer the <TMPL_LOOP> version as it doesn't depend on what the browser does with the JS code.

You can shove all of your information into one hash, then use Data::Dumper or Storable to 'pack' and 'unpack' your hash.

Jeff

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