In Python CGI create select menu using list variable

Question

Is there any convenient/standard way to generate html select menu using list variable? For example I have list variable elements=['aaa','zzz','sss'] And need to generate drop down select menu using this variable:

<select name="dropdown" >
<option value="aaa">aaa</option>
<option value="zzz"> zzz </option>
<option value="sss"> sss </option>
</select> <br />

In Perl for example I can use CGI module and just specify :

 popup_menu(-name=>'dropdown', -values=>['NULL',@elements])

Thank you in advance

• John Giotta: Maybe this would work stackoverflow.com/questions/1548474/python-html-generator
• mjhm: Lots of suggestions from this as well: stackoverflow.com/questions/521621/… It's mostly is suggestions for template engines, but it sounds like Genshi has a direct HTML generator.

Answer 1

def makeSelect(name,values):
 SEL = '<select name="{0}">\n{1}</select>\n'
 OPT = '<option value="{0}">{0}</option>\n'
 return SEL.format(name, ''.join(OPT.format(v) for v in values))

• Ruslan: Simple and efficient. Thank you, exactly what I need.
• Hugh Bothwell: Glad to help. Please feel free to tag it as the solution! ;-)

Answer 2

I'm not aware of a native markup generator, but this library looks promising.

markup.py

EDIT: It looks like it hasn't been worked on since 2007

Answer 3

Expanding Hugh's answer a bit, someone might need a selected option:

def makeSelect(name, values, selectedValue=None):
 SEL = '<select name="{0}">\n{1}</select>\n'
 OPT = '<option value="{0}"{1}>{0}</option>\n'
 return SEL.format(name, ''.join(OPT.format(v, " SELECTED" if v==selectedValue else "") for v in values))