[phpesp-dev] choices from table rather than phpesp:question_choice

[Chad B. <ch...@be...>]

I'm looking for any comments you might have on the following:

I've been toying around with the idea of grabbing choices for questions 
from other db tables rather than having to type them into the create 
survey interface.  I believe someone else came up with the idea but 
after searching the message archive I can't quite track who...  Anyway, 
the idea goes something like this...

When creating a new question rather than listing choices that may just 
be duplication of another table in your database enter a sql query and 
have phpESP do the work for you.

example:  let's say you want to list all of the dental clinics for a 
respondent to choose from.  The question text would be:

Choose the clinic where you performed the procedures.

Question Type could be any type with multiple choices: [Radio, Check 
Boxes, Drop Down, Rate]

Now instead of typing all of the clinics and possibly creating errors 
along the way.  Enter the following special tag and sql.

On line 1:
<sql>select name from clinic order by name</sql>

( if the clinic table wasn't in the phpESP db then enter an optional 
argument telling the db name, DB::connect() syntax )  like this:

On line 1:
<connect> mysql://user:password@machine_address/db_name</connect>
On line 2:
<sql>select clinic_name from clinic order by clinic_name</sql>

Now, when you clicked [New Field] or [Continue] then the choices would 
be created for you!

Implementation:

It looks like survey_update() is the only function involved.  So, my 
idea is to trap multiple choice questions that have the <sql> tags and 
create the choices automagically.

Any comments?

chad.