hey, i think i am following your logic ok, but im not to sure about the select statement at the bottom. Its giving me an error. Also, when i choose whatever router, or interface card, can i pass that as a variable somewhere else later on? I guess what the print function is gonna do is print all the columns and rows for that particular interface. well sorry for all the questions as I am just learning this language.
thanks for the help so far.
<?
$db_name = "inventory";
$table_name = "routers";
$connection = @mysql_connect("localhost", "nate", "nate"

or die("Couldn't connect."

;
$db = @mysql_select_db($db_name, $connection) or die("Couldn't select database."

;
$result = @mysql_query($sql, $connection) or die("Couldn't execute query."

;
function selRoutersAndCards()
{
$sql = "SELECT * from router";
$rs = mysql_query($sql, $connection)or die("Connection to DataBase failed"

;
for($i = 0; $i < mysql_num_rows( $rs ); $i++)
{
$tmp = mysql_fetch_row( $rs );
print("<OPTION value=\"$tmp[0]:$tmp[1]\">$tmp[1]</OPTION>\n"

;
}
}
<SELECT name="selRouter" size="1">
<?php
selRoutersAndCards(); ?>
</SELECT>
?>