Refill form values received from drop down menu

GREAT this forum - JUST GREAT !...

Issue: All data entered into my online form was lost (blanked out) and the form returned correctly with message "wrong verification code", when submitted with the wrong verification code.  However, going through this great forum I managed to get all - manually entered - data back ! I placed 

value="<?php echo $_GET['the_field_name'];?>"/  after each input field.

BUT... not so with input fields entered from drop-down menu !

How do I put a similar string for the field "Payment by" in this sample:

<tr>

<td class="table-inquire" width="47%">

<font face="Verdana" size="1" color="#000042">

Payment by:</font></td>

<td class="table-inquire" width="51%" colspan="2">

<font color="#400000" face="Verdana">

<select name="payment" size="1">

<option value="VISA">VISA</option>

<option value="MASTER">MASTER</option>

<option value="CASH">CASH</option>

<option value="T/T Banktransfer">T/T Banktransfer</option>

<option selected>Please select</option>

</select></font><font size="2" color="#400000" face="Verdana"></font></td>

</tr>

Any advise greatly appreciated. Thanks.

OOOPS... It's me again:

Same counts for the message field. It's gone also....

Can anyone advise please, what I have to specify, in order to keep the message field preserved in this sample:

<font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#000042"><br>

Further comments:<br></font

<font color="#400000" face="Verdana">

<textarea rows="5" name="message" cols="60"></textarea>

Thanks again

Maybe you use POST not GET to send form data???

You use the same method as before;

<select name="payment"> 
		<option value="<?php echo $_POST['payment'];?>" selected><?php echo $_POST['payment'];?></option> 

Change _POST to _GET if using URL and Not a form.

The above keeps the value from the post data and  makes it the selected option so it shows just like it did on the prior form.

Not 100% thats what your asking but if so, there you go.

Bill.

use an if statement

if true, assign checked="checked" for that particular option value