So I’ve been working on my tracking software, mainly the monthly reporting input for campaign statistics. One form uses an HTML select list that’s filled using a PHP array. While I loop through the array, I also select the current month for the user.

The issue I was having is that my database stores the month as its numerical value. I wanted to keep the month name in my select list, so I went in search of a solution. While it’s not hard, it did take some time to find. Here is the solution that worked for me:

// Setup month counter for loop
$mCounter=”1″; // Set month integer on January

// Build month array
$aMonths=array(”January”,”February”,”March”,”April”,”May”,”June”,”July”,”August”,
“September”,”October”,”November”,”December”);

// Loop through months
foreach($aMonths as $sMonth) {

// Convert month counter to month number
$iMonth=date(”m”, mktime(0,0,0,$mCounter,1,0));

// Select current month
if ($sMonth!=date(”F”)) {
$htmlMonths.=”<option value=\”".$iMonth.”\”>”.$sMonth.”</option>\n”;
} else {
$htmlMonths.=”<option value=\”".$iMonth.”\” selected>”.$sMonth.”</option>\n”;
}

// Update month counter
$mCounter++;
}

HTML code that displays the select:

<strong>Month</strong>:<br />
<select name=”selectMonth”><?php echo $htmlMonths; ?></select>

Your input and questions are always welcome!