More compact way of accessing multiple groups of radio buttons

[maxwell_]

I have a form containing multiple groups of radio buttons and a textarea.
When submitted the form sends the results to the php mail function.
I have already validated the form with javascript however would like the php validation as backup.
I have tried various ways to process the form results however had problems
with Undefined index error messages if someone submitted the form without choosing any of the radio buttons.
I finally managed to achieve what I want with the following code however it looks very long winded.
Can you suggest a more compact way to do this?

if(isset($_POST["send_message"])){

if(isset($_POST['radio_group_1'])){
$question1 = $_POST['radio_group_1'];
}
else
{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_2'])){
$question2 = $_POST['radio_group_2'];
}
else
{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_3'])){
$question3 = $_POST['radio_group_3'];
}else{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_4'])){
$question4 = $_POST['radio_group_4'];
}else{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_5'])){
$question5 = $_POST['radio_group_5'];
}else{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_6'])){
$question6 = $_POST['radio_group_6'];
}else{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_7'])){
$question7 = $_POST['radio_group_7'];
}else{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_8'])){
$question8 = $_POST['radio_group_8'];
}else{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_9'])){
$question9 = $_POST['radio_group_9'];
}else{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(isset($_POST['radio_group_10'])){
$question10 = $_POST['radio_group_10'];
}else{
header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}
if(!empty($_POST['sender_message'])){
    $message = $_POST['sender_message'];
} else {
     header('Location: feedback-form.html');
}

}

[NogDog]

This would require no changes to your HTML mark-up (I could probably come up with something a bit cleaner if you used the array notation for the radio buttons in the HTML):

foreach(range(1, 10) as $ix) {
	if(isset($_POST['radio_group_'.$ix])) {
		${'question'.$ix} = $_POST['radio_group_'.$ix];
	}
	else {
		header('Location: feedback-form.html');
		exit;
	}
}

[NogDog]

PS: One could argue that assigning $POST['something'] to variable $something is wasted processing and memory, and also obfuscates the source of the data (this last perhaps more important these days). Instead, you could just use $POST['something'] whenever you need its value in the code.

[Bonesnap]

NogDog;11043527 wrote:

PS: One could argue that assigning $POST['something'] to variable $something is wasted processing and memory, and also obfuscates the source of the data (this last perhaps more important these days). Instead, you could just use $POST['something'] whenever you need its value in the code.

I always assign my data to new variables. Saves time when using the variables later via the code intelligence of my IDE (auto complete).

If I need to see the source of the data I scroll up to the top of the file since that's where the variables are declared and assigned their values (usually in a series of ternary operators).

[NogDog]

Bonesnap;11043557 wrote:

I always assign my data to new variables. Saves time when using the variables later via the code intelligence of my IDE (auto complete).

If I need to see the source of the data I scroll up to the top of the file since that's where the variables are declared and assigned their values (usually in a series of ternary operators).

Yes, many people do this, and I won't say I never do this, but I try to minimize it these days, especially avoiding the extreme case of:

$foo = $_POST['foo'];
echo "<p>$foo</p>";

😉

And really, if you're only going to use that post/get/whatever value in one or two places, you're net saving in typing could be a negative number of characters -- but it's certainly not a hard and fast rule I follow, but I'm definitely less likely to just willy-nilly assign such values to scalar variables now.