Posting arrays as VALUES in form OPTION

mrob

I'm trying to post an array as a value in a SELECT options list.
Here's what I've got so far:

$form.="<select name=\"info\">";
while ($row=mysql_fetch_array($result))
{$form.="<option value=\"$row\">".$row['name']."</option>";}
$form.="</select>"

However I have trouble using the $_POST['info'].

print_r($_POST['info'])

yields Array,but no details and I can't use it with foreach or with an echo to reference the fields in the row e.g.

$info=$_POST['info'];
echo $info['name'];

Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Mrob

maybl8r03

$_POST[info] would return a string called array because you have tried to cast "$row" in the value element. The result of the mysql_fetch_array() returns an array of the database record. What you should have done is:

$form .= "<select name=\"info\">";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
    $form .= "<option value=\"{$row['fieldname']}\" ".
       ( $_POST["info"]== $row["fieldname")? " selected=\"selected\"":"").
       ">{$row['name']}</option>";
}
$form .= "</select>";

Where fieldname contains a unique identifier for the options. If you'd like to do multiple select, you would do:

$form .= "<select name=\"info[]\" multiple=\"multiple\">";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
    $form .= "<option value=\"{$row['fieldname']}\" ".
        (in_array($row["fieldname"], @$_POST["info"]) ?
            " selected=\"selected\""
        :
            ""
        ).
     ">{$row['name']}</option>";
}
$form .= "</select>";

mrob

Dear Maybl8r03,

Thanks for the code snippet.

I assume this passes only a certain chosen element (the 'fieldname' one) rather than the whole array as I was trying to do. I can use this to do what I need to do, but just out of curiosity, does this mean an array can't be passed as a value at all.

Also, is the line

( $_POST["info"]== $row["fieldname"])? " selected=\"selected\"":"").

intended to leave the previously selected option as the selected one if you return to the form?

maybl8r03

Re: Array Can't be passed as a value at all. Literally, no. For example if you have the following:

$arList = array(
"little"    =>    "Large",
"red"      =>    "Green",
"riding"  =>     "Flying",
"hood"   =>    "Boots"
);
$arList2=array(
    "anotherarray"  => "not another one!!!"
);

if you just call it at the root (i.e. $arList), PHP, being a weakly typed language would just tell you it's an array by replacing the object with a string "Array".

print $arList . "\n";
print $arList2;

results in "Array\nArray". It doesn't differentiate them at all.

Re. Remembering the last submit values, yes that's what it is for. Plus the "selected=\"selected\"" may look redundant and strange but this is actually a requirement if you want your html pages to work with XHTML browsers of the future. Tag attributes must contain a value enclosed in double quotes to be XHTML/XML compliant.