trouble with auto-submitting dynamic select form

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HTML

PHP

MySQL

forms

I'm having trouble with my dynamic select forms. When the "subject" form is submitted it works perfectly, but when the "course" form is then submitted, the form seems to submit properly (localhost/page.php?subject=1&course=2), but it returns the option back to null so it isn't working with later php that is dependent on the course_id.

$subject = $course = null;

$conn = mysql_connect('', '', '');
$db = mysql_select_db('',$conn);

if(isset($_GET["subject"]) && is_numeric($_GET["subject"]))
{
     $subject = $_GET["subject"];
}

if(isset($_GET["course"]) && is_numeric($_GET["course"]))
{
     $country = $_GET["course"];
}
?>

<script language="JavaScript">

function autoSubmit()
{
     var formObject = document.forms['theForm'];
     formObject.submit();
}

</script>

<form name="theForm" method="get">
    <select name="subject"  önChange="autoSubmit();">
        <option value="null">Select a Subject...</option>

                $sql = "SELECT DISTINCT subj_name, subj_id FROM table1 ".
                 " ORDER BY subj_name";
        $result = mysql_query($sql) or die ("couldn't execute query");

        while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
        {
            echo ("<option value=\"$row[subj_id]\" " . 
                 ($subject == $row["subj_id"] ? " selected" : "") . 
                  ">$row[subj_name]</option>");        
        }
        ?>          
    </select>

if($subject != null && is_numeric($subject))
{
?>

    <select name="course"  önChange="autoSubmit();">        
        <option value="null">Select a Course...</option>

                $sql = "SELECT DISTINCT course_id, course_name, subj_id FROM table1 ".
                  "WHERE subj_id = $subject";
        $result = mysql_query($sql);

        while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
        {
            echo ("<option value=\"$row[course_id]\" " . 
                     ($course == $row["course_id"] ? " selected" : "") . 
                  ">$row[course_name]</option>");        
        }
        ?>          
    </select>

}
?>
</form>