arrays and $HTTP_GET_VARS

[packland]

Newbie needing help!

I'm trying to develop a shopping list that takes data from a form. The page needs to take the first $HTTP_POST_VARS being the NAME of the submit button to create a product group.

<br><input type='submit' name='Group_A' value='Add To Shopping List'></th></tr>

After this the group is added to a 3 dimensional array (stored as a session variable) - sort of like this

$basket =array($product_group[item #][product_code, number_required])

etc.

I'm looking for a way to shift out the first element of $HTTP_POST_VARS and grab the 'Group_A' bit (key). Put succinctly i guess this means i'm trying to refer explicitly to a key by its position in $HTTP_GET_VARS which is an associative array?

Otherwise I can strip it out as I enumerate through the data in a (excuse my poor pseudo code):

foreach ( $HTTP_GET_VARS as $key=>$value )

{
if (this is the first item) {
Create [Group A from $key]
}else{
add to [GroupA item $key, #=value]
}
}

but this is less elegant I think?

Does this make any sense at all??

[packland]

Maybe some real code might help

//A manual representation of the array
$basket = array (
'product_group1' =>
        array (
        array (product_code=>"A", number=>"1")),
'product_group2' =>
        array (
        array (product_code=>"A", number=>"1"))),


// the nasty way of adding a new group and filling its contents.
//each variable after the first is taken to be a product code and
// a number required
//How to array_shift the first $HTTP_GET_VARS and get the key????
$i = 0
while(list($key, $value) = each($HTTP_GET_VARS))
{
   $i++
   if ($i=1) {
      $product_group = $key
      //create new top level array with a dummy entry.
      $basket[$product_group][0]['dummy'] = "D";
      //this is a dummy entry i'm still working on this
   }else{
      //add to the list of items in this group
      $basket[$product_group][$i][product_code] = $key
      $basket[$product_group][$i][number] = $value
   }
}

[packland]

Sorted - thanks anyway
staring me in the face!

(list($key, $value) = each($HTTP_GET_VARS));
print "the first variable: $key <br>\n";
print "the first value: $value <br>\n";