Parsing through form with unknown number of fields
forms, php, post
Solution
Why not just name your html form elements using arrays? You could make the form something like:
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<td>First Name</td>
<td>Last Name</td>
<td>Email Address</td>
<td>Invites</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody id="coords">
<tr id="row-1">
<td id="1-1"><input type="text" name="invites[1][fname]"></td>
<td id="1-2"><input type="text" name="invites[1][lname]"></td>
<td id="1-3"><input type="text" name="invites[1][email]"></td>
<td id="1-4"><input type="text" name="invites[1][invites]"></td>
<td id="1-5"><span id="minus-1" class="minus">( - )</span></td>
</tr>
<tr id="row-2">
<td id="1-1"><input type="text" name="invites[2][fname]"></td>
<td id="1-2"><input type="text" name="invites[2][lname]"></td>
<td id="1-3"><input type="text" name="invites[2][email]"></td>
<td id="1-4"><input type="text" name="invites[2][invites]"></td>
<td id="2-5"><span id="plus-2" class="plus">( + )</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
and you would get your post data already formatted like:
Array
(
[invites] => Array
(
[1] => Array
(
[fname] => first1
[lname] => last1
[email] => test@test.com
[invites] => 2
)
[2] => Array
(
[fname] => first2
[lname] => last2
[email] => test2@test.com
[invites] => 5
)
)
)
Then you could just do something like:
foreach($_POST['invites'] as $invite){
//process invite
echo "{$invite['fname']} {$invite['lname']} was invited. <br />";
}
Problem
I'm working on an invite system where a user can invite one or more people to be coordinators for their account. To allow the user to invite more than one person at a time I'm using mootools to create another row of fields whenever the user clicks a plus. In my example below I'll be using just two rows but they could invite much more if they'd like. HTML ``` <table> <thead> <tr> <td>First Name</td> <td>Last Name</td> <td>Email Address</td> <td>Invites</td> </tr> </thead> <tbody id="coords"> <tr id="row-1"> <td id="1-1"><input type="text" name="fname-1"></td> <td id="1-2"><input type="text" name="lname-1"></td> <td id="1-3"><input type="text" name="email-1"></td> <td id="1-4"><input type="text" name="invites-1"></td> <td id="1-5"><span id="minus-1" class="minus">( - )</span></td> </tr> <tr id="row-2"> <td id="2-1"><input type="text" name="fname-2"></td> <td id="2-2"><input type="text" name="lname-2"></td> <td id="2-3"><input type="text" name="email-2"></td> <td id="2-4"><input type="text" name="invites-2"></td> <td id="2-5"><span id="plus-2" class="plus">( + )</span></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> ``` $_POST looks like this ``` Array ( [fname-1] => David [lname-1] => Last [email-1] => email address [invites-1] => 15 [fname-2] => Shirley [lname-2] => Last [email-2] => other email [invites-2] => 10 [action] => invite ) ``` PHP parsing is this ``` if (isset($_POST['action'])) { $_SESSION['inviteCoordinators'] = $_POST; $newCoordinators = array(); //loop through all fields while(list($key,$value) = each($_SESSION['inviteCoordinators'])) { if($key != 'action') { list($field, $user) = explode("-",$key); $newCoordinators[$user] = array ( $field => $value ); } } } ``` I was expecting $newCoordinators to look like this ``` Array ( [1] => Array ( [fname] => David [lname] => Last [email] => email address [invites => 15 ) [2] => Array ( [fname] => Shirley [lname] => Last [email] => other email [invites => 10 ) ``` But all that I'm getting is the [1][invites] => 15 and [2][invites] => 10. I assume i'm only seeing the invites because the others are getting overwritten but I can't make sense of why that would be. What's wrong with my parsing? Or, how should I be doing it? Side note, the only required field will be the email address.