[RESOLVED] Processing a variable number of form inputs?

mayeska

I have a form that queries my data table and pulls up a varying number of inputs depending on how many rows are in the table.

For example, if there were 5 people's names in a phone book, the form queries the database, sees that there are 5 entries, displays all 5 names, and then displays an input asking for each person's age.

This data is going to be further processed, so it needs to be thrown into a php variable.

Ordinarily, if I'm processing a form, the processing script grabs data in the following way... (using the above example)

$age = $_POST['age'];

In my dynamic form, I created a counter string for the 'age' input id's. In other words, a form with 5 entries in the address book will have 5 age input id's -- age1, age2, age3, age4, and age5.

Now, however, I'm stumped. I'm trying to write my processing script and I have no idea how to post my form data into variables. I have to find a way to generate unique variable names for each form field. I tried this...

<?php
$count= $_POST['count'];
//this is a hidden variable posted by my form, telling me how many rows are in my table.
$ticker=0;
//this starts my variable counter at 0

 do { 
$ticker = $ticker + 1;
$age'$ticker' = $_POST['age'$ticker'']; 
while ($ticker <= $count); ?>;

This gives me an unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING in the "$id'$ticker' = $_POST['alarmtype'$ticker'];" line. Obviously, this isn't legal syntax. I'm not advanced enough to know if there's a simpler way to do this.

Help?

Thanks,
Karen

laserlight

This line:

$age'$ticker' = $_POST['age'$ticker''];

appears malformed. It is probably intended to be:

${'age' . $ticker} = $_POST['age' . $ticker];

However, I suggest using arrays:

$age[$ticker] = $_POST['age' . $ticker];

mayeska

Duh. Never thought of using an array. Worked like a charm. Thanks!

bradgrafelman

Note you could also use an array in your HTML:

<input type="text" name="age[]">
<input type="text" name="age[]">
<input type="text" name="age[]">
<input type="text" name="age[]">

Then you'd process $_POST['age'] as an array:

foreach($_POST['age'] as $age) {
    // do something with each $age
}

Either way, don't forget to mark this thread resolved.