passing multidimensional array from form in php

Question

I have a bit of a headache here. My problem is as follows. I have three sites that I e-mail items to, all three sites have a couple of default mail addresses. so on my form i create inputs with the existing addresses and allow the user to create more dynamically. i might end up with the following

site 1 - address 1
site 1 - address 2

site 2 - address 1
site 2 - address 2
site 2 - address 3

etc

my inputs look like <input type="text" name="email[]"/>

i need to pass the site identifier and the inputted address to my php script and loop through it to add the list to the database

If you know that you only have 3 sites, why not name="site1email[]", name="site2email[]", and name="site3email[]"? — Patrick Q
– Patrick Q, Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 20:18
site items are dynamic, so could be any number at the end of the day, with associated addresses — Terence Bruwer
– Terence Bruwer, Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 20:19
So when you said "I have three sites that I e-mail items to", you really mean "I have a dynamic number of sites that I e-mail items to"? — Patrick Q
– Patrick Q, Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 20:20
You could also do name="email[site1][]"/name="email[site2][]"/etc — Sean
– Sean, Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 20:21

Cobra_Fast · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-06 20:20:39Z

2

Let's assume a basic form like this:

<form method="post">
    <input type="text" name="email[]" />
    <input type="text" name="email[]" />
</form>

Your email fields would appear in PHP as the following:

$_POST['email'][0]
$_POST['email'][1]

As you can see, all email fields are neatly stored into the array $_POST['email']. PHP Does this automatically when appending [] to your input field names.

You can also nest them even deeper:

<form method="post">
    <input type="text" name="email[1][]" />
    <input type="text" name="email[1][]" />
    <input type="text" name="email[2][]" />
    ...
</form>

Now they would show up in $_POST['email'][1][...], $_POST['email'][2][...] and so on.

answered Aug 6, 2014 at 20:20

Cobra_Fast

16.2k8 gold badges64 silver badges106 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

AbraCadaver · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-06 20:25:58Z

1

You can specify the array key and also make it two dimensional:

name="site[1][]"
name="site[1][]"
name="site[2][]"
name="site[2][]"

Then loop through and use key and value:

foreach($_POST['site'] as $site => $addresses) { // $site is the number and $addresses is an array
    $address_list = implode(',', $adresses);     // or loop $addresses or whatever
}

There are a lot of possibilities depending on how is easiest to structure and access it in your particular case.

edited Aug 6, 2014 at 20:25

answered Aug 6, 2014 at 20:20

AbraCadaver

79.2k7 gold badges75 silver badges91 bronze badges

3 Comments

Terence Bruwer Over a year ago

so if i understand this correctly i would have 'code' name="email[siteid][]". or as i will have it name="email[1][]".

AbraCadaver Over a year ago

Yes, that will work. I used site because the number is the site number and it made more sense.

Terence Bruwer Over a year ago

to access it in php i use echo $email[siteid][offest]. ;) so i managed to figure it out from what you said, thank you so much

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

passing multidimensional array from form in php

2 Answers 2

Comments

3 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

3 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related