title: How to set default value for HTML drop-down list not from the option element?
body: <p>I'm using an adaptation of PHPBB to create a drop-down list. </p>
  
  <pre><code>  &lt;select name="destination_path"&gt;
      &lt;!-- BEGIN path --&gt;
      &lt;option value="{path.DESCRIPTION}"&gt;{path.DESCRIPTION}&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;!-- END path --&gt;
    &lt;/select&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The list is generated from a MySQL query, so it is dynamic. This list is within a form and when the form is fired I want to retain (and return) it's state in session variables. My first thought was to place something in the <code>&lt;select&gt;</code> statement. </p>
  
  <p>I  know you can use:</p>
  
  <pre><code>selected="option_selected" 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>in the relevant <code>&lt;option&gt;</code>, but it seems like a messy way to do this and would require an if statement to compare each tag as the tag is created. </p>
  
  <p><em><strong>Is there a way to declare the default option in the select tag, or a better defined method to achieve the same result?</em></strong></p>