Form Values in arrays problem

mickfuzz

hi there,

I've got a sticky one for me that I'm sure is very simple.

I've got some code that asks users to catogories their entries.

The form looks a bit like this.

<p>
<strong>Migration:
<br />
<br/>
<input id="Migration" type="checkbox" name="field_name_arr[1]" value="Yes" > <label for="Migration">Migration</label>

<p>
<strong>no_borders :
<br />
<input id="no_borders" type="checkbox" name="field_name_arr[2]"
value="Yes" > <label for="no_borders">no_borders</label>

<...and so on>

--//end form

I'm running register globals as off so i use the following code

$numrows = count($_POST['field_name_arr']);

//test
echo $numrows;

   for ($i =0  ; $i < $numrows ; $i++)
     {         
          $field_name_arr[$i] = $_POST['field_name_arr'][$i];
     }

This really isn't working -

So the $numrows value is returned as the number of boxes that are ticked rather that the number of boxes in total.

Can anyone help?

Mickfuzz@rocketmail.com

devinemke

i suggest the following approach:

<?php
if (!isset($_POST['submit']))
{
	$checkboxes = array(
	'Migration',
	'No Borders',
	'Heads of State',
	'World Capitals'
	);

echo '<form action="" method="POST">';

foreach ($checkboxes as $value)
{
	echo '<input type="checkbox" name="checkboxes[]" value="' . $value . '">' . $value . '<br>' . "\n";
}

echo '
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit">
</form>
';
}
else
{
	if (isset($_POST['checkboxes']))
	{
		echo 'you checked the following:<br><br>';
		foreach ($_POST['checkboxes'] as $value)
		{
			echo $value . '<br>';
		}
	}
	else
	{
		echo 'you did not check anything';
	}
}
?>

leatherback

mickfuzz wrote:
So the $numrows value is returned as the number of boxes that are ticked rather that the number of boxes in total.

Can anyone help?

Mickfuzz@rocketmail.com

Hi,

the reason for this is that ONLY the checked boxes are submitted somehow. If you use the foreach method described by devinemke, you ovewrcome this. If you need to know the number of the checkbox, you can do:

foreach($_POST['checkboxes'] as $keyu=> $value)

where $key will now hold the number.

mickfuzz

"The reason for this is that ONLY the checked boxes are submitted somehow. "

Yes that's it - this test is the key -
$numrows = count($_POST['field_name_arr']);
which only returns the number of boxes checked

any idea why that would be?

I suppose this is really the question I would like to solve.

The above code looks good but isn't suitable to the project I'm working on at the moment as I'm tied into using the array $field_name_arr to contain not just check boxes but other information as well.

That's why the array was explictly assigned numbers -eg.

This had solved a similar problem, but seemingly when changing the code so that it worked with register_variables = Off - something changed.

Any pointers would help.

Weedpacket

mickfuzz wrote:
"The reason for this is that ONLY the checked boxes are submitted somehow. "

any idea why that would be?

Because that's what is required by the HTML standard (§§17.2.1 and 17.13.2).

mickfuzz

If that's so the surely the code posted by devinemke wouldn't work either?

mickfuzz

ok i see - that code does work

but is there anyway of working out which boxes are not ticked.
it would really help.

laserlight

but is there anyway of working out which boxes are not ticked.

Well, you could have a group of hidden fields to mirror the checkboxes. The difference between the array of checkboxes and the array of hidden fields would then be the checkboxes that were not checked at form submission.

devinemke

mickfuzz wrote:
...but is there anyway of working out which boxes are not ticked.

sure there is:

<?php
$checkboxes = array(
'Migration', 
'No Borders', 
'Heads of State', 
'World Capitals' 
);

if (!isset($_POST['submit'])) 
{    

    echo '<form action="" method="POST">'; 

foreach ($checkboxes as $value) 
{ 
    echo '<input type="checkbox" name="checkboxes[]" value="' . $value . '">' . $value . '<br>' . "\n"; 
} 

echo ' 
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"> 
</form> 
'; 
} 
else 
{ 
    foreach ($checkboxes as $value)
		{
			echo $value;
			if (isset($_POST['checkboxes']) && in_array($value, $_POST['checkboxes'])) {echo ' <b>was</b> checked';}
			else {echo ' <b>was not</b> checked';}
			echo '<br>';
		}
} 
?>

mickfuzz

Thanks for that one - Sorry to be a bit slow on the uptake!!

🙂

mickfuzz

Weedpacket

Or array_diff($checkboxes, $_POST['checkboxes']) - start with the full list of values and take out every value that was among those submitted.