dynamic form-multiple selections

dreams4000

Hi all,
I have a form that is basically being generated by a random column/row selection. It just makes a certain number of rows and columns, each having a text box to fill in.. ie a form with 5 rows and 5 columns will have 25 text fields to enter. I can get the form to display fine and pass data as an array, but from there I need it to be able to do a mysql insert...I am not quite sure how to get the data to insert into specific fields when it is all in one big array. I can really only seem to get the last item to enter into the database. any advice would be apprecaited. Here is what I am working with:

for($j = 0; $j < $_POST['columns']; $j++) {

echo "<td><center><input name='data[]' size='5'></center></td>";

}

The above is just the entry from a form that generates the columns/rows.. this one only does the data fields in the columns. This is passed to another file that has:

 	for($j = 0; $j < count($data); $j++)
	{		
		$data1 = $data[$j]; 

}

I can specify $data1 to insert into the mysql database, but it only drops in the last item in the array. How can I get it to put each field entry that is in the array, into a separate place in the database? Thanks!

devinemke

what exactly is your data structure? you say that the form contains a random number of text boxes. if it's random how do you know where/how each one gets inserted into the database?

dreams4000

my piont exactly=p My whole problem is getting the data into the database. I realise I would need to set a max limit on how many columns in the database could be used, but I need to be able to get the data in beyond the last item in the array.

devinemke

explain more about what this all for. what kind of data are you expecting from this form? words, numbers, dates? how will it be used later?

dreams4000

it could be numbers or letters .. the fields are simple text fields. I just need each field to match up with one slot in the database. I know I have to limit it, but to get any of them to insert seperate would be nice. Just imagine an excel looking format. Each cell is a text field and needs to be a data field in the database. What makes this difficult is that the number of fields can grow or shrink based on a specification from the user to create only a certain number of fields.

devinemke

what i meant was, what is the structure of the data? your earlier code example suggests that all of the text boxes are being returned as an enumerated array call "data". but what are the individual elements of this data? what is the meaningful difference between $POST['data'][5] and $POST['data'][12]? i don't quite see how all of this data will be useful to you in a database unless you organize it in some meaningful way. after all, that was a database is for: to organize data. i would think you would want to label each text box will a specific name in order to indicate to the user what they would enter there. for example: name, email, address, etc...

i have a sense that i still not understanding the broader aspects of what you are trying to do with this data.