Multidimensional Arrays and Forms?

Anon

In one page, I make a multidimensional array, and I try passing the array to the other page using a form, but it doesn't seem to want to pass. Can anyone recommend a function or a different way of going about passing multiple values?

Anon

How about Serialize()? Check out the manual.

Anon

I do not understand why it did not work for you. I pass 2 dimensional arrays all the time, the form method=post (I do not think that matters), the name="var[1dim][2dim]" value=$var[1dim][2dim]. They pass along fine.

If this is not working for you try writing a function that decodes the array into a string that can be eval() and create the variable for you. I actually use this technique to send the original array so I can compare the orginal with the changed form variables to see what needs to be updated.

Tony wrote:

Anon

could you write how you do it in details. I have an array in one form, too, and I have to pass it to another page via form. So, in form - what should I write? Could not you give an example of such form tag? I'm quite new to PHP.

Anon

Tony,

This may not be what you want to do, but have you considered using sessions for what you want to do? it may save you the trouble of trying to construct that form data. Just an idea...
-S

Anon

Ok lets see here, this is how I would do it.

First build your 2 dimensional array. For this example it will be array[dim1_0][dim2_0]=0 array[dim1_1][dim2_1]=1 and array[dim2_2][dim2_2]=2

Output the form info first.
echo "<form name=form1 method=post action=next_page.php>";

Output the text elements, you would probably do this in some form of a loop, for or foreach, for simplicity I do not do that.

echo "<input type=text name=\"array[dim1_0][dim2_0]\" value=\" . $array[dim1_0][dim2_0] . "\"> zero element<br>";

echo "<input type=text name=\"array[dim1_1][dim2_1]\" value=\" . $array[dim1_1][dim2_1] . "\"> one element<br>";

echo "<input type=text name=\"array[dim1_2][dim2_2]\" value=\" . $array[dim1_2][dim2_2] . "\"> two element<br>";

echo "<input typ=submit value=\"submit\"></form>";

When you submit you will have the array value to use. Try using the function var_dump($array) on that page to see what the structure and values of the array are.

Hopefully this will help you out.

As a side note be carefull with sessioning, if you do not control the registering and unregistering of the variables closly, variables can wind up not being set properly for a user. Sessioning is a great tool to use, it has become my best friend, but at the cost of being my enemy until I spent the time to consider all use and error states of a page using sessioning.

Jeff

Anon

To Vincent you listen. Wise is he in the ways of PHP.

If you don't want to serialize it, you could use WDDX too, but the initial implementation could be rough because of the (very) small learning curve.

I don't get why you need to pass an entire array in a form, however. If you are trying to build a wizard type page, use sessions as Stephen suggested.

Anon

It helped. And produced more questions ;-) Still I see several places in my projects where this is helpful.