Dynamic HTML Select generation in PHP

/**
 * Return an HTML <select> statment based on an array of options
 *
 * @returns string HTML output for select statement
 * @author Tamara Temple <tamara@tamaratemple.com>
 * @param array $options_array - array of options (return value => option string),
 * @param string $element_name - name and id of the select statement
 * @param string $label=null - label to be used for select statement
 * @param string $selected_item=null - key in $options_array to be preselected
 **/
function dynamic_select ($options_array,
             $element_name,
             $label=null,
             $selected_item=null)
{
  $out = PHP_EOL;
  if (!empty($label)) $out .= "<label for \"$element_name\">$label</label>".PHP_EOL;
  $out .= "<select name=\"$element_name\" id=\"$element_name\">".PHP_EOL;
  foreach ($options_array as $key => $value) {
    $out .= "  <option value=\"$key\"";
    if ($key == $selected_item) $out .= " selected=\"selected\"";
    $out .= ">$value</option>".PHP_EOL;
  }
  $out .= "</select>".PHP_EOL;
  return $out;
} // END function dynamic_select