Cleaning up unwieldy switch statement?

[redneck]

I have been working on an application which uses $_GET arguments to build forms for user data entry. I have made extensive use of the switch statement, and while everything works just fine, I was wondering whether there might be more streamlined ways to do what I am trying to do. I am always looking out for best practices, etc.

I use a function, build_form(), to produce the form page. The build_form() function works out what elements are in the form by iterating through an array passed as an argument:

  function build_form($form_type, $elements, $db) {

// The $form_type variable tells us which kind of form we are making, 
//  while the $elements array includes the specific elements of the 
//  form.  $db is optional, in case we need to access the database.

?>

<form action ="<?php print($_SERVER[PHP_SELF]) ?>" method ="POST">
<input type="hidden" name="form_type" value="<?php print($form_type) ?>"><p>
<table>

<?php


foreach ($elements as $value) {  // iterate through $elements to build the form

  echo "<tr>\n<td align=\"right\">\n";
  print (ucfirst($value));
  echo ': </td><td>';

 switch ($value) {  // we do something a little different for each element type

   case 'name':
   case 'description':
   case 'email':
   case 'shots':
   case 'score':

     echo "<input type=\"text\" name=\"$value\"><p>\n";

     break;  // normal text cases

   // some elements get special treatment: a drop-down menu

   case 'shooter':
   case 'course':
   case 'class':
   case 'club':
   case 'league':
   case 'target':
   case 'target_type':

     drop_menu($value, $db);

     break;  // cases fpr drop-downs

 } // end of switch on $value

  echo "</td>\n</tr>\n";

}  // end of foreach on $elements

echo "<tr>\n<td align=\"right\" colspan=\"2\">\n";
echo "<input type=\"submit\" value=\"Submit\"><p>";
echo "</td>\n</tr>\n</table>\n</form>\n";

  } // end of function build_form()

This works fine, and for now I'm not sure it needs any improvement. The question is, how do I build the form element array ($elements in the function, $form_elements in the main program)?

Here's how I am doing it now:

          $form_elements = array('name');

      switch ($_GET['item']) {

        case 'club':

          $form_elements[] = 'description';  
          $form_elements[] = 'email';        
          $form_elements[] = 'league';       
          break;

        case 'league':

          $form_elements[] = 'description';  
          $form_elements[] = 'email';        
          break;

        case 'score':

          $form_elements[0] = 'score';  
          $form_elements[]  = 'shooter';  
          $form_elements[]  = 'course';        
          $form_elements[]  = 'class';        
          break;

        case 'shooter':

          $form_elements[] = 'email';
          $form_elements[] = 'club';
          break;

        case 'course':

          $form_elements[] = 'description';
          $form_elements[] = 'target';
          $form_elements[] = 'shots';
          break;

        case 'target':

          $form_elements[] = 'description';  
          $form_elements[] = 'target_type';  
          break;

        case 'class':

          $form_elements[] = 'description'; 
          break;

        default:

          html_footer(__FILE__, "Can't recognize Item.");

      } // end of switch on $_GET['item']

      build_form($_GET['item'], $form_elements, $connection);

As you can see, there will be a different array depending on what $_GET['item'] is. Again, this works just fine, but I can't help wondering whether there's a more streamlined approach. I am somewhat disturbed that I have so many entries of "$form_elements[] = 'description'", for example.

So is there a cleaner way to do this?

Thanks.

[jstarkey]

Your question is a bit hard to follow, but you can try:

case 'whatever':
    $form_elements = array('description','email','league');
    break; 

That will cut your parse time significantly, although probably not noticable.

[ahundiak]

If your solution is working for you then it's probably best to stick with it.

However, you might consider using classes with $_GET['item'] being the name of the class.

class club
{
  var $name;
  var $form_elements;

  function club()
  {
    $this->name = 'club';
    $this->form_elements[] = 'description';
    $this->form_elements[] = 'email';
    $this->form_elements[] = 'league';
  }
}

Your build_form routine would then take an object as input.

[redneck]

Thanks for the help. I decided to accept jstarkey's suggestion for cleaning things up a bit (an obvious one, in retrospect).

I guess what bothers me about all this is switch statements strike me as a klunky, brute-force approach to these kinds of problems (like excessive GOTOs in BASIC), and I was wondering if there was a slicker way. Now that I look at it some more, I recognize a switch statement is the only clean way to do this.

Thanks for the class idea, but I am not yet comfortable with OOP. Gotta walk before I can run.