foreach input help

fxpepper

I am trying to loop through input fields and check their class names.

For example:

<input type="text" class="form text first_name" name="a" id="a" />
<input type="text" class="form text date" name="b" id="b" />
<input type="text" class="form text last_name" name="c" id="c" />

the class names are actually dynamic and if it has the "date" class, I need to do something with it. I get one dimension foreach loops but i think I need to use key values here right? and I am little confused...

any help is appreciated.

thanks!

sid

I assume you're talking about working with the form before it was submitted? You probably want to attach a pop-up calendar or something like that? In this case, you need to resort to a scripting language that can work on the DOM in the browser. Javascript would be your best bet -- using jQuery for instance, something like that is a breeze. See http://wbsl.at/V2.

If we are talking post submission, check your $POST (or $GET/$REQUEST - depending on your form method) array by calling

print_r($_POST);

You'll see, that all you really get (except for the $_FILES array) are key/value pairs, where the key is the name attribute of your input field and the value is … well … you get the idea 😉

fxpepper

yes, exactly....I am trying to format a date value before it hits the database...but it has to be done with php in this particular case. so is this not possible then???

laserlight

fxpepper wrote:
I am trying to format a date value before it hits the database...but it has to be done with php in this particular case. so is this not possible then?

It cannot be done, unless you have a way of identifying that it is a date based on the form element name.

fxpepper

laserlight;10983836 wrote:
It cannot be done, unless you have a way of identifying that it is a date based on the form element name.

well it has a class of "date" which is why i wanted to loop through the inputs and their classes. or are you saying it has to be something like this name="date_id" ??

thx

Derokorian

That's exactly what he's saying, you should always use the name attribute to be identifying, just like Ryan is identifying for me (and like a million other people) date would be identifying for that field. To use names with no real meaning, serves no purpose for you when you try to process that form. Think about updating code in a month, year, whateva... Now you see $POST['a'] in your process script but what is $POST['a']? there's no way to know unless you open up the form and look for a field named 'a' to find out its a name field. However if you do name="name" then your post data will be: $_POST['name'] a very IDENTIFYING way of knowing what you are working with.

fxpepper

right - okay, I understand that but can you modify the format with php before the form is submitted?

thanks

laserlight

fxpepper wrote:
I understand that but can you modify the format with php before the form is submitted?

No. It may be possible with clientside scripting, but not with typical use of PHP which is on the serverside.

fxpepper

okay thank you everyone