Hi,

I would like to dynamically populate a dropdown widget from a database.  the 'menu-choice widget looks like

(widget-create 'menu-choice
        :tag "Select Host Species"
        :value "unknown"
                 :notify (lambda (widget &rest ignore)
                           (setq host-species (widget-value widget)))
    '(item "human") 
    '(item "rat") 
    '(item "mouse")) 

Suppose I can generate a list '( "human "rat" "mouse") from the database.  How to create

   '(item "human") 
    '(item "rat") 
    '(item "mouse")

on the fly?  The closest I can come is 

(progn
  (setq var '( "human" "rat" "mouse"))
(mapcar '(lambda  (a)  `'(item ,a))  var)
)

Thanks

Mortimer