dropdown menu

[eluser]hujan[/eluser]
hi all,

currently, im doing dropdown menu for a form. inside the dropdown
i have 10 data(which contains list of company). my problem is every user
must select at least 3 companies. if user did not select data or
only select less than 3 the user will get error message after he/she
click the submit button.my problem is,user still can send the form into the system eventho
they didn't select any or less than 3 companies. I want to restricted each user should enter at least 3 companies. please help me...

This is my code for dropdown in view

Code:

<table>
<tr>
<td>
1. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref1a',$pref1a); ?&gt;
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
2. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref2a',$pref2a); ?&gt;
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
3. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref3a',$pref3a); ?&gt;
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
4. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref4a',$pref4a); ?&gt;
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
5. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref5a',$pref5a); ?&gt;
<td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
6. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref6a',$pref6a); ?&gt;
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
7. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref7a',$pref7a); ?&gt;
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
8. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref8a',$pref8a); ?&gt;
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
9. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref9a',$pref9a); ?&gt;
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
10. &lt;?php echo form_dropdown('pref10a',$pref10a); ?&gt;
<td>
</tr>

inside model(i only show $pref1a):

Code:

function general()
  {
$data['pref1a']   = array('_'=>'Choose one...',
                        'Company A'=>'Company A',
                        'Company B'=>'Company B',
                        'Company C'=>'Company C',
                        'Company D'=>'Company D',
                        'Company E'=>'Company E',
                        'Company F'=>'Company F',
                        'Company G'=>'Company G',
                        'Company H'=>'Company H',
                        'Company I'=>'Company I',
                        'Company J'=>'Company J');
return $data
}

and this is how i did my validation inside the controller:

Code:

if($this->input->post('formsubmit')){  
    $this->form_validation->set_rules('pref1a', '', 'required');
    $this->form_validation->set_rules('pref2a', '', 'required');
    $this->form_validation->set_rules('pref3a', '', 'required');
    

if ($this->form_validation->run() == FALSE) {
     redirect('error');
    } else {
     $this->dy_model->entry_insert();
     redirect('success');
    }

[eluser]PhilTem[/eluser]
You may want to create a custom callback that will check that there are only three of your dropdowns selected. Have a look here