how to loop variable names?

[jennyp]

I have a PHP page which is picking up values of a form that were generated in an earlier page, like this:

$sku1Descrip = $POST['sku1descriptionfield'];
$sku1Price = $POST['sku1pricefield'];
$sku1Status = $_POST['sku1status'];

$sku2Descrip = $POST['sku2descriptionfield'];
$sku2Price = $POST['sku2pricefield'];
$sku2Status = $_POST['sku2status'];

...but how do I use a loop instead, to avoid writing out a potentially long list of assignments?

[essexboyracer]

This may help: http://www.evolt.org/article/Storing_form_array_data_to_MySQL_using_PHP/18/60222/index.html

OR get the QUERY_STRING and explode it into an array, I think that helped me out at some stage

[jennyp]

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure how I could apply it to my problem. The form that sends the data is constructed like this:

$Database = file('server_path_to_textfile');

echo '<p>Type in new values:</p>';
echo '<form id="writeitemsform" name="writeitemsform" action="processitems.php" method="post">';

foreach($Database as $row)
{
$line = explode('|', $row);
if ($line[0] !== '')
$SKU = ($line[0]);
$Description = ($line[1]);
$Price = ($line[2]);
$Status = ($line[3]);
echo '<p>Item ID: '.$SKU.'</p>';
echo '<p>Item Description: <input type="text" name="'.$SKU.'descriptionfield" value="'.$Description.'"></p>';
echo '<p>Item Price: <input type="text" name="'.$SKU.'pricefield" size="6" value="'.$Price.'">';
echo '<p>Status: ';
if ($Status == 'OK')
{
echo 'Available <input type="checkbox" name="'.$SKU.'status" value="OK" checked></p>';
}
elseif ($Status == 'NO')
{
echo 'Available <input type="checkbox" name="'.$SKU.'status" value="OK"></p>';
}
echo '<img src="../images/skuimages/'.$SKU.'.jpg" border="0" width="100" />';
}
echo '<p><input type="submit" name="submitnewfieldsbutton" id="submitnewfieldsbutton" value="Submit New Values"></p></form>';

Then it's the "processitems.php" that the form sends to, that I'm trying to write. The idea is to overwrite the database with the new values entered in the form. Like I said I'm kind of stuck here:

$sku1Descrip = $_POST['sku1descriptionfield'];
$sku1Price = $_POST['sku1pricefield'];
$sku1Status = $_POST['sku1status'];

..etc. I'm able to write it this way, enumerating each variable/field pair in a long list, because I can predict the database. But obviously I'd prefer to assign these variables in a loop, without such explicit reference to my knowledge about the database.

Maybe I'm using the wrong approach, but I feel some loop would work?

[vaaaska]

Well, you need to validate ANY user input. If you have validated your input, thus making it $clean, you could use extract(). However, if you do not validate things you are setting yourself up for disaster...I can't stress this enough.

http://www.php.net/extract

[Weedpacket]

As well as the suggestion of building up variable names as strings

${"sku".$i."descriptionfield"}

, renaming the fields in the form so that they return arrays would make the whole business of trying to loop through them trivial.

<input .... name="description[1]" />

would populate $POST['description'][1]. Having

<input ... name="sku[1][description]" />

for $_POST['sku'][1]['description'] would also keep all the bits for each sku together in one array ($_POST['sku'][1] in this example). Then again, that's what's suggested in that evolt article.

[jennyp]

So if I change the input names by a counter to something like:

<input type="text" name="descriptionfield['.$counter.']" value="'.$Description.'">

... I refer to them in the processing script loop:

$Description = ($_POST['descriptionfield'][$counter]); ?