title: Why does my HTML5 form not submit the value for my option list with PHP?
body: <p>In my code everything is submitted fine except for the "category" field in the option drop down list. The PHP file that used <code>$category = $_POST['category'];</code> can't get the string of text associated with each option value, but assigns the other variables with no problem.</p>
  
  <p>This information from the form is then put into my database, and the user can make a search - all works fine apart from the category field.</p>
  
  <pre><code> &lt;form method="post" action="add_item_action.php"&gt;
      &lt;table&gt;
      &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;Item Name:&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;input type="text" name="name"&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
      &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;Vendor Name:&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;textarea name="vendor"&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;Item Details:&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;textarea name="description"&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
      &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;Item Start Price ($):&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;textarea name="price"&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
      &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;Item &lt;/td&gt;
      &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;label&gt;Category:&lt;/label&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
               &lt;td&gt;&lt;select id = "category"&gt;
             &lt;option value= "1"&gt;Select an option&lt;/option&gt;
                 &lt;option value = "Electronics"&gt;Electronics&lt;/option&gt;
                 &lt;option value = "Cars"&gt;Cars&lt;/option&gt;
                 &lt;option value = "Fashion"&gt;Fashion&lt;/option&gt;
                 &lt;option value = "Pets"&gt;Pets&lt;/option&gt;
             &lt;option value = "Miscellaneous"&gt;Miscellaneous&lt;/option&gt;
             &lt;option value = "Books"&gt;Books&lt;/option&gt;
             &lt;option value = "Sports"&gt;Sports&lt;/option&gt;
               &lt;/select&gt;
              &lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
      &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td colspan=2&gt;&lt;input type="submit" value="Add item"&gt;
      &lt;/table&gt;
      &lt;/form&gt;
  </code></pre>