title: validate drop down list echoed from php to html with javascript?
body: <p>ok so, the title of this question might be a little confusing, and i will try to explain it to you:
  i have a php file with an array containing multiple form fields like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$var = array(0 =&gt; '&lt;input type=....&gt;', 1=&gt; '&lt;input type=....&gt;');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and i created a while loop to loop through the array to show them in a table, something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>echo '&lt;table&gt;';
    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
      $num = $row['fieldId'];
      $field = $num.' '.$row['field'];
      echo '&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;'.$field.'&lt;/td&gt;';
      echo '&lt;td&gt;'.$var[$q].'&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;';
      echo '&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;';
      $q++;
    }; echo '&lt;/table&gt;';
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>i included this php file in a html file so i can get a table with two columns, the first one with $field from the database and the second with $var[$q] which is some input field taken from the $var array. 
  Believe it or not that actually works, now the problem is that inside that $var array i have a <code>&lt;select&gt;</code> field with multiple options, i want to validate that field with some javascript, but for some reason i can't get the values assigned in <code>&lt;option value="SOMEVALUE"&gt;</code> . i don't know why but i can't, one thing i found weird is that in that $var array i have some radio buttons which i <strong>CAN</strong> validate with javascript.</p>
  
  <p><strong>more info:</strong>
  the html file that includes the php file has this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;html&gt;....
  &lt;form name="mainForm"&gt;
    &lt;?php
      include 'myPhpFile.php';
    ?&gt;
    &lt;input type="button" name="btnNext" onclick="functionToValidate();"&gt;
  &lt;/form&gt;
  ...&lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>so basically when i include my php file it creates a table and adds fields to it filling them with data from a mysql database and some input fields using the $var array shown above
  all that works, but the problem is when i click the next button it calls a javascript function to validate the fields, everything works until it gets to the <code>&lt;select&gt;</code> input,
  i can validate radio buttons, text fields and textareas but i can't validate those <code>&lt;select&gt;</code></p>
  
  <p>this is the javascript function i am using:</p>
  
  <pre><code>function myFunctionNameHere(){
  if(!document.mainForm.p1_1[0].checked &amp;&amp; !document.mainForm.p1_1[1].checked)
        alert("1 - some warning here");
      else if(!document.mainForm.p1_2[0].checked &amp;&amp; !document.mainForm.p1_2[1].checked)
        alert("2 - some warning here");
      else if(!document.mainForm.p1_3[0].checked &amp;&amp; !document.mainForm.p1_3[1].checked)
        alert("3 - some warning here");
      else if(!document.mainForm.p1_4[0].checked &amp;&amp; !document.mainForm.p1_4[1].checked)
        alert("4 - some warning here");
      else if(!document.mainForm.p1_5[0].checked &amp;&amp; !document.mainForm.p1_5[1].checked)
        alert("5 - some warning here");
      else if(!document.mainForm.p1_6[0].checked &amp;&amp; !document.mainForm.p1_6[1].checked)
        alert("6 - some warning here");
      else if(document.mainForm.p1_7.value == "")
        alert("7 - some warning here");
      // this condition does not work:
      else if(document.mainForm.p1_8.selectedIndex == 0)
        alert("8 - some warning here);
     // can't get the selectd field from the html select field
      else
        window.location = "OTHERPAGE.html";
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>that's pretty much what the function does, all conditions work except for that one i put the comments on. (i'm still learning so don't laugh at my code... please.)</p>
  
  <p><strong>Sorry i actually got this solved, there were some errors in the html code from my php array. Now it actually works.
  Thanks.</strong></p>