Using arrays within $_POST, not the right value?

Cherphas

Hi,

I created a php form with a bunch of text areas. When the page loads up, the text areas are populated by data from a database. Everything is divided in sections and in every section there are about a dozen definitions. For every section I have 2 Submit buttons: "Add Section"(sbm_Add_Section) and "Remove this Section"(sbm_Remove_Section), and for every defnition I have 2 more submit buttons: "Add Definition"(sbm_Add_Def) and "Remove this Definition"(sbm_Remove_Def), so the user can add or remove data and then submit it. Of course I have a loop that gets the data from the db, first the it gets the section and then all the definitions from that section, then it goes to next section and so on. Every submit button is assigned a number by using an index key(array), like this:

<input type="submit" name="sbm_Add_Section [<?php echo $i;?>"]" value="Add Section">

This is done so I can detect which button has been clicked on, so if "sbm_Add_Section[4]" has been clicked the page will reload and it will add a new section after that. If "sbm_Add_Def[5]" is clicked, the page will reload and it will add an empty field after Definition 5 so the user can enter something and then he can submit it to the database.

Everything worked fine until I got a new version of PHP(4.2.2). Now I have to use $_POST to get the values. So now I have to do this:

$sbm_Add_Section[$i] = $_POST['sbm_Add_Section'][$i];

When I print $sbm_Add_Section[$i], for some reason it prints me 'Add Section'. This is the value of the button, it's what I want written on the button. Does anybody know why it does this? Where am I suppose to put the value of the index key?

drawmack

try this

<input type="submit" name="sbm_Add_Section_<?php echo $i;?>" value="Add Section">

then in your processor do this

$curVar = $sbm_Add_Section_$i;
$$curVar = $_POST[$curVar];

just incase you don't get the joke here, naming your variables in the way I suggested in the first piece of code makes the second piece unnecessary unless you don't have register globals turned on.

laserlight

Let's consider:

now, $POST['sbm_Add_Section']['4'] should by right contain "Add Section" if the button has been pressed.
What you need to know is not the value of the button, but the index.
This can be found by looping through $POST['sbm_Add_Section'], say with foreach(), a loop that should only have one iteration, though it is safer to loop anyway and check if someone has been tampering with the form.

drawmack's idea might be better in this case, but personally I dont like a hack with variable variables.