[RESOLVED] Making variables from $_POST - How do I...?

joshmpratt

I am trying to write a custom email script. I would like to not have to update the script (so that it can be used with any form with any input fields). I'm just not quite sure how to get this done. Is there a way to make this happen?

It would be nice if - let's say here's one of the pieces from the form:

Can I make the script so that it runs through $POST and for this input, it would create a variable of $jamiroquai and have the value of $POST['jamiroquai']?

The hard part is: I won't know what any of the $_POST variable names are or how many there are.

shu

reset($_POST);

foreach ($_POST as $key => $val) { $$key = $val; }

This should do what you want, but then again, how are you going to access this variables when you don't know what they are??

joshmpratt

Is there a way to do anything this the <label> for input fields? For instance: if I've got this:

<label for="jamiroquai">What do you think of Jamiroquai?</label>
<input type="text" name="jamiroquai" value="" />

Is there a way that I can have my mail script output in the email:

What do you think of Jamiroquai? [the answer]

The othe dilema is this: I don't want that to happen with certain fields, and some hidden fields. Is there a way that I can remove those from being displayed?

shu

You can't access non-form elements from PHP! What I suggest is to store all of your questions in a PHP array, and then have an answer array with corresponding index. Like:

$questions = array(
    "What do you think of Jamiroquai?",
    "Questions 2 blah blah....?";
    "Questions 3 blah blah....?";
    "Questions 4 blah blah....?";
    ...
);

//Generate your form as such
for ($i=0; $i<count($questions); $i++) {

echo $questions[$i] . '<input name="answers[]" size="16" value = "" /><br />';

}

//On the back end side, you can generation your email as such:
for ($i=0; $i<count($answers); $i++) {

echo $questions[$i] . '   ' . $answers[$i] . "\n";

}

joshmpratt

Yea, that's not going to work, considering I said that I will not know what and how many different input fields there are going to be.

So, I need to know how to take a $_POST, eliminate certain fields (like hidden fields) and then display it in the body of an email that would look like:

[input field name] : [input field value]

shu

Do you want the variable names in your email for do you want the questions that were asked? Make up your mind dude!

joshmpratt

The point is, that I'm making a mail script that shouldn't need to be hard-coded to know the the names and quantity of input fields in a form. So, if the <label> cannot be passed, then it just isn't an option for me to use and I don't then need to know how to use the <label> inside the script.

So, since I can't use the <label> then, I need to use the name of the input field.

shu

The code snippets I provided above give you all the flexibility in the world! All it needs is all the questions you going to ask; which is something you should know to begin with, right? And the codes only outputs answers from the form, no hidden fields are included.

And there's no hard coding of any names and quantity either. I think you need to re-familiarize yourself with basic HTML and/or PHP.

joshmpratt

Can you at least let me know how the syntax looks, with the foreach snipped you gave me, how I would display all of those?

shu

Using foreach() method, you can't eliminate the hidden fields:

reset($_POST);

foreach ($_POST as $key => $val) { 

echo "$key : $val \n"; //$key is the variable name, $val is the answer from the form.

}

However, if you name your hidden fields in a particular way, like start all hidden field names with an underscore (), eg: fieldName1

Then you can modify the foreach() method to exclude such varaibles:

reset($_POST);

foreach ($_POST as $key => $val) { 

if (!preg_match("/^_/", $key)) {
    echo "$key : $val \n"; //$key is the variable name, $val is the answer from the form.
}

}

joshmpratt

It appears that the syntax for the preg_match doesn't work. I've got fields starting with "_" but it still shows them anyway.

shu

The syntax is fine! Show the source for your form.

joshmpratt

Ok.. The problem is when I try to add other conditions to it... I've tried about 5 different ways to make it happen, but I need 2 different things instead of just the "_".

So, I need the !preg_match to find anything starting with "_" as well as field labeled "required". I tried about 5 different variations of this with no success:

if (!preg_match("/^required/", $key) || !preg_match("/required/", $key)) {

Any ideas?

NogDog

Should it match only if "required" is the full field name, or only if "required" appears at the start (or end) of the name, if "required" appears anywhere in the name, or what?

shu

Post the html code for the form. Without seeing what I am dealing with, I can only guess!

joshmpratt

reset($POST);
foreach ($POST as $key => $val) {
if (!preg_match("/^required/", $key)) {
echo '<strong>'.$key.':</strong> '.$val.'<br /><br />';
}
}

I've got one hidden field called "required" and a number of fields that start with "_"

So to answer your question NogDog, "required" is the full name of one of the hidden fields.

NogDog

if(!preg_match('/^(_.*|required)$/', $key))
{

joshmpratt

It works! Thank you!