Checkbox array confusion

[Newbie_Suz]

Hi there. Long time lurker, first time poster, LOL. It should go without saying that I'm a newbie. But I've actually been making tons of progess and figuring things out on my own -- in large part due to all the assistance available here and in the manual.

I've been trying to learn about checkbox arrays and am thoroughly confused because there seem to be a couple different ways of looping through them.

I have a massive form that will be utilizing multiple arrays of checkboxes. I'm trying to tackle the first one. (Baby steps! :queasy: )

Each of my checkboxes in my first array are coded as follows in the HTML:

<input type="checkbox" name="chk_ShopSpecialty[0]" id="chk_ShopSpecialty[0]" value="1">

They run from 0 to 26.

Any problems there?

Then onto my code to read the array. I want to read each value to see if it's checked, and if not, assign it a value of 0. Then, of course, I want to insert the entire record into the database.

I want to get the basic code down first before tackling the next steps. What is the best way to approach this?

<? php

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


$chk_ShopSpecialty  = array();  
            // is this how to correctly declare the array?  
           // is this the correct location TO declare it?


//METHOD ONE I'VE SEEN: 

while 
(list($key,$value) = each($chk_ShopSpecialty)) 
{ 
    print_r($value); 
}


//METHOD TWO: 

for ($x = 0; $x < sizeof($chk_ShopSpecialty); $x++) { 
    echo 'Value='.$chk_ShopSpecialty[$x].'<br>'; 
} 


}

?>

My problem is that neither of these methods is displaying anything. I want to be able to get this straight before I try to go any further. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[lucasrd]

Only the checkboxes that are checked will actually end up in your array...so even if you have 26 possible choices, the array size will depend on how many are checked...

You should format them like this:

<input type='checkbox' name='cbName[]' value='2'>
<input type='checkbox' name='cbName[]' value='3'>
<input type='checkbox' name='cbName[]' value='4'>
<input type='checkbox' name='cbName[]' value='5'>

Then to loop through them on the corresponding page:

while(list($key,$val) = each($cbName)){
   echo $key . "->" . $val . "<br>";
}

Remember, only the ones that are checked will be in the array on the page you post to...

[Newbie_Suz]

Thanks for your reply.

After various attempts, I had finally figured out how to get my array to display. This is what worked for me:

	while (list($key,$value) = each($_POST['chk_ShopSpecialty'])) 

	{ 
	   	echo "$key => $value<br>";
	}

I see now that ONLY the checked boxes will be in the array.

A couple of questions:

I want the value of each of these checkboxes to be 1 (for true) or 0 (false) if unchecked. So is it okay that I keep my checkboxes named as follows instead of the suggestion above? Eventually I want each of the checkboxes to correspond to one of 26 fields in a single record and contain either a 0 or 1 in the database, so I don't think I want to set the value= 2, 3, 4, etc. as was recommended, do I? Or is there something programmatically wrong with the logic I'm following??

input type="checkbox" name="chk_ShopSpecialty[0]" id="chk_ShopSpecialty[0]" value="1">
input type="checkbox" name="chk_ShopSpecialty[1]" id="chk_ShopSpecialty[1]" value="1">
input type="checkbox" name="chk_ShopSpecialty[2]" id="chk_ShopSpecialty[2]" value="1">

Now, my next challenge is to get a zero assigned to any box that was not checked and does not appear in the array. I'll be struggling with that now (being the newbie I am)... but if anyone has any suggestions in the meantime, I'd be most appreciative!!!!

[Newbie_Suz]

Geez, I'm overthinking this! My database table is set up as a series of INT(1) 's that cannot be null and therefore default to 0! So I've already got my zeros in there, and they'll only be updated with a one if the checkbox is checked. Duh.