Looping through multidimensional arrays

[timbr8ks]

Okay, what I'm doing should be fairly simple, but I've been working at it for a couple of hours, I've read books, I've been on php.net, and I'm not getting it right.

Essentially, I am allowing someone to create a survey. They can add a question, and then they can add n answers. The answers have a response and an order. So, the form looks like this:

	<tr>
		<td>Answer</td>
		<td><input type="text" name="answer[response]" size="50"></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>Order</td>
		<td><input type="text" name="answer[order]" size="5"></td>
	</tr>

The form can have as many answers as they want. Each time they add an answer, another blank space appears for a new answer. So, once submitted, the page first erases any existing answers and then tries to do this:

foreach ($_POST['answer'] as $a => $v1) {
	if ($answer['response'] != "") {

$sql_addAnswer = "
INSERT INTO survey_answer (
	survey_section_id,
	survey_question_id,
	survey_answer,
	survey_answer_order
) VALUES (
	'$_POST[survey_section_id]',
	'$sid',
	'$answer[response]',
	'$newAnswer[order]'
)";

if ($res_addAnswer = mysql_query($sql_addAnswer))
	$addAnswer = true;

}
}

But it's not working. If my first answer is male / 1 and my second answer is female / 2, they both show up as male / 1. Or when I have only one answer, I get it more than once.

What am I doing wrong? Can someone help?

Thanks.

[devinemke]

since you are specifying a specific key name in you array (answer[response] and answer[order]) you keep overwriting the previous array index. remember, arrays must have all unique keys (the values can be repeated). you need to add a dimension to your array to allow for multiple responses and orders:

<tr>
<td>Answer</td>
<td><input type="text" name="answer[][response]" size="50"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Order</td>
<td><input type="text" name="answer[][order]" size="5"></td>
</tr>

then when the form is submitted:

foreach ($_POST['answer'] as $key => $value)
{ 
	if ($value['response'] != "")
	{
		$sql_addAnswer = " 
		INSERT INTO survey_answer ( 
		    survey_section_id, 
		    survey_question_id, 
		    survey_answer, 
		    survey_answer_order 
		) VALUES ( 
		    '$_POST[survey_section_id]', 
		    '$sid', 
		    '$value[response]', 
		    '$value[order]' 
		)"; 

	if ($res_addAnswer = mysql_query($sql_addAnswer)) 
	    $addAnswer = true;	
} 
}

[timbr8ks]

Devin,

This is really close, but not quite there (unless I'm doing something wrong). My code now looks just like yours, but it's not passing $value[order]. In fact, after asking the person's gender, if I just do this upon submission:

foreach($_POST['answer'] as $key => $value) {
	if ($value['response'] != "") {
		print_r($value);
	}
}	

I get:

Array ( [response] => male ) Array ( [response] => female )

. . . I don't get the value for [order].

Again, the code in the form is this:

<tr>
	<td>Answer</td>
	<td><input type="text" name="answer[][response]" size="50"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>Order</td>
	<td><input type="text" name="answer[][order]" size="5"></td>
</tr>

And when submitted, it does this:

foreach($_POST['answer'] as $key => $value) {
	if ($value['response'] != "") {
		$sql_addAnswer = "
			INSERT INTO survey_answer (
				survey_section_id,
				survey_question_id,
				survey_answer,
				survey_answer_order
			) VALUES (
				'$_POST[survey_section_id]',
				'$sid',
				'$value[response]',
				'$value[order]'
			)";
		if ($res_addAnswer = mysql_query($sql_addAnswer)) {
				$addAnswer = true;
		} 
	}
}	

I get no value for $value[order].

I really appreciate your reply and your help.

[devinemke]

you will actually have assign a unique key for the first dimension of the array and have be the common key for the response and order. for example, if you wanted to do 5 answer/order pairs:

<form action="" method="POST">
Answer1: <input type="text" name="answer[1][response]" size="50"><br>
Order1: <input type="text" name="answer[1][order]" size="5"><br><br>

Answer2: <input type="text" name="answer[2][response]" size="50"><br>
Order2: <input type="text" name="answer[2][order]" size="5"><br><br>

Answer3: <input type="text" name="answer[3][response]" size="50"><br>
Order3: <input type="text" name="answer[3][order]" size="5"><br><br>

Answer4: <input type="text" name="answer[4][response]" size="50"><br>
Order4: <input type="text" name="answer[4][order]" size="5"><br><br>

Answer5: <input type="text" name="answer[5][response]" size="50"><br>
Order5: <input type="text" name="answer[5][order]" size="5"><br><br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit">
</form>

then when you loop thru $_POST['answer'] you will have a subarray in each index with the response and the order.