How to fill populate a dropdown form with items from the database using codeigniter? [duplicate]

I am attempting to create a dropdown filled with items from my database.

I have it populating but the values are ending up being the position in the array. i.e: 0, 1, 2, etc.

Here is my code for the form:

 echo form_open('main/generate_report'); $depts = array(); foreach ($my_depts->result() as $row) { $depts[] = $row->DEPT_NAME; } echo form_dropdown('dept_select', $depts); echo form_submit('report_submit', 'Generate Report'); 

it goes to this function when submitted:

echo '<h1><u>Report</u></h1>'; echo '<h2>'; echo $this->input->post('dept_select'); echo '</h2>'; 

for example when I select the first option named "test", it outputs 0 (its position in the array) rather than "test" like I want it to.

How do I adjust what the value is when populating the dropdown?

thank you in advance.

I am using Codeigniter 3.