Ruby saving selected choice in select_tag

I currently have a form that will pass 2 parameters to my controller. My question is every time I make a choice in 开发者_如何学JAVAthe select_tag form, I want my option to stay after I hit the submit tag. That way the user knows what he or she just selected. I could used :selected=>"true", but thats only for the default value and not for the value submitted.

<form name="filter" action="" style="display:inline" >
  <label for="filter">Filter by Name or Description: </label>
    <%= text_field_tag "query", params['query'] %>
    <label for="status">Filter by Status:</label>
    <%= select_tag(:sortstatus,
                   '<option value="empty">Show All</option>,
                   <option value="0">Applying</option>,
                   <option value="3">Suspended</option>,
                   <option value="4">Pending</option>') %>
    <%= submit_tag 'Search' %>
</form>

And here is the controller that will change the value of empty to work with my table

  def sort_status
    if params[:sortstatus] == "empty"
             @statusorder = ""
    else @statusorder = params[:sortstatus]
    end
  end

Haven't been able to find any solution so far in Google.

---

Take a look at using options_for_select to generate your options tags. It allows you to specify which entry you would like to be selected. e.g.

<%= select_tag(:sortstatus, options_for_select([['Show All', 'empty'],
  ['Applying', '0'],
  ['Suspended', '3'],
  ['Pending', '4']], params[:sortstatus]) %>

This will set the selected item to the current value of params[:sortstatus]