Passing form multiple input from scrolled lists

Anon

I've created a form using printf statements and have a scrolled list of options like so:

printf("Pick your fruits:
<SELECT NAME=fruit MULTIPLE SIZE=3>
<OPTION VALUE=A>Apple</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE=B>Banana</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE=M>Melon</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE=O>Orange</OPTION>
</SELECT><BR>\n");

and am wondering how I can access the variable $fruit when the user has selected multiple options. I can only get $fruit to return a single value (the option furthest down on the list).

E.g. if the user selects "Apple" and "Banana", I can only get "B" to return as the value of $fruit.

I've tried calling $fruit multiple times thinking that the name-value pairs use "fruit" as the name repeatedly. Any ideas?

Anon

PHP always takes the value that you set in the VALUE tag... If you want it to return the actual name just scrap the VALUE=x bit in the OPTION tags and PHP will take the value from whats between the OPTION tags (ie Apple or Banana etc)

You could use an if/then on the other side if you want the codes too or you could pass the value pair separated by a ":" or something and then do an explode on that... I can't see you needing that though..

HTH

Stephen

Anon

Unfortunately, the only way you are going to get this is to use the GET method instead of the POST method. And when you do, you are going to have to weed out all the variables passed to get what you want. Use the following script to do that:

<?
$fruits = $QUERY_STRING;
unset($fruit);
$fruits = explode("&", $fruits);
for($i = 0; $i < count($fruits); $i++) {
$a = explode("=", $fruits[$i]);
for($j = 0; $j < count($a); $j++) {
if($j == 1) {
$fruit[$i] = $a[$j];
}
}
}

for($i = 0; $i < count($fruit); $i++) {
echo("<br>$fruit[$i]");
}
?>

NOTE that the variable $QUERY_STRING is Apache, I don't know if it works on other servers or what their equivalent is. The unset command is only necessary if you are using the same variable name as you assigned in the form to create your array. To see what happens if you omit it, comment it out and run this script, fun!

Drawbacks: If this is a long form with alot of input, you are in for a bit of fun getting what you want, good thing is this script will assign all variables to the array, bad thing is you have to figure out which piece of the array is the correct variable. Once you do, though, it won't change, unless of course you change your form with more variables.

HTH,

Jim

Anon

This is much easier than it appears. Since you wish to return multiple values from the select statement, just give the select statement the name of an array, such as "fruit[]". The browser will have no problem with this and you can use PHP to pick up all the chosen variables simply by iterating through the array. Below is a complete code example:

<head>
<title>Fruit Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="test.php" method="post">

<?
printf("Pick your fruits:
<SELECT NAME=fruit[] MULTIPLE SIZE=3>
<OPTION VALUE=A>Apple</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE=B>Banana</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE=M>Melon</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE=O>Orange</OPTION>
</SELECT><BR>\n");

if(count($fruit) > 0) {
for ($i = 0; $i < count($fruit); $i++) {
echo "$fruit[$i]<br>";
}
}
?>
<input type="submit">
</form>
</body>

Anon

Thanks! This is what I love about this list. I hate the GET method. I owe you one (even if I didn't originally ask the question).

Jim

Anon

Thanks everyone!

Anon

I'm affraid, this declaration:
"<SELECT NAME=fruit[] MULTIPLE SIZE=3> "
has one mistake:
javascript doesn't recognize it. So you can't use the javascript validation.

Anon

Yes, if you have given your SELECT the NAME tag \"MYSELECT[]\", you will not be able to reference it with JavaScript. You may, however add an ID tag to the SELECT with the value \"MYSELECT\" and reference it that way:

<SELECT ID=\"MYSELECT\" NAME=\"MYSELECT[]\">
...
if(document.form.MYSELECT.whatever){}

Note this only works in IE.

This is a shame for PHP... in ASP the Request.Form object automatically puts all multiple inputs into a comma-delimited list.

Anon

Persistance pays off:

Here's a way to validate "multivalue[]" style objects in javascript:

Instead of

document.myform.multivalue[].whatever

which will fail, try

document.forms["myform"].elements["multivalue[]"].whatever

This works in IE and Netscape 4+