syntax question

$question_01 = "selected";

this works fine...

PHP
<? print "<option value=\"01\" $question_01 > What is your father's middle name?";?>

this does not...

HTML
<option value="01" <? $question_01?> > What is your father's middle name?

is there a way in a option statement to include this variable inside the html brackets without
having to use php to parse the entire line?

It might be considered sloppy coding...
But i think this is what you're after:
<option value="01" <?=$question_01;?>> What is your father's middle name?</option>

ty, thats the syntax i needed

no problem...
Just to clarify my "sloppy coding" comment...

The suggested way to set to set an option as selected is selected="selected"
this may seem odd, but that's how the W3C set their standards... its based on XML, attributes should be name/value pairs... thus, I'd recommend $question_01='selected="selected"';

Also, I question your variable $question_01... but I guess its being set by a database value, or maybe a $_POST or $_GET value... i'm sure you have that logic figured out =)

Glad to hear its working.