Help : Text Box Arrays

[camead]

Hi Guys, I am new to this site, and I regret that I have been ploughing my way through php tutorials for about 6 years, and have had great success and never really though about actually just asking for help untill now!!

 

I am having difficulty with a script I am trying to write, basically the script is to a form creator script, to create a questionair.  So I set up a simple database, with a table to hold the questionaire name and ID, and a table to hold to questionaire questions, and a table to hold the answers,  so now I need to write the script.

 

Each questionaire will have different amounts of questions on it, so I have made a script to ask how many questions are required, and then output the correct number of textboxes to input the questions onto, as follows ;

 

if(isset($_POST['continue'])){

$assess_name = $_POST['assess_name'];
$company = $_POST['company'];
$num_ques = $_POST['num_ques'];
$num_questions = (int)$num_ques;
$i = 1;

echo "<form action='create_assessment.php' method='post'><table width='800' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0'>
<tr><td colspan='2'>Assessment name : <b>$assess_name</b><input type='hidden' name='assess_name' value='$assess_name'></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan='2'>Company Name : <b> $company</b><input type='hidden' name='company' value='$company'> ";

while($i <= $num_questions){
echo "<tr><td>Question $i : </td><td><input type='text' name='ques[]'></td></tr>";
$i++;
}
echo "<tr><td colspan='2'><input type='submit' name='crt_assess' value='Create'></td></tr>
</table></form>";

}else{

echo "<form action='new_assess.php' method='post'><table width='100%' cellpadding='0' border='0' cellspacing='0'>
<tr><td>Assessment Name : </td><td><input type='text' name='assess_name'></td></tr>
<tr><td>Company Name : </td><td><input type='text' name='company'></td></tr>
<tr><td>Number of Questions : </td><td><input type='text' size='3' name='num_ques'></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan='2'><input type='submit' name='continue' value='Continue'></td></tr>
</table></form>";

}

 

However, when processing the secondary form with the questions onto the next page, it doesnt seem to build the array for the "ques[]" textbox, i.e. it doesnt recognise it as an array.  the next page code is as follows :

 

if(isset($_POST['crt_assess'])){

include "../connect.php";

$assess_name = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['assess_name']);
$company = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['company']);

$add_assess = mysql_query("INSERT INTO assessments (name, company, timestamp)VALUES('$assess_name','$company','$timestamp')") or die(mysql_error());
$assess_id = mysql_insert_id();
echo "$assess_name Succeessfully added to database with the following questions : <br>";

if(is_array($_POST['ques'])){
	foreach($_POST['ques'] AS $value){
	$escape = mysql_real_escape_string($value);
	$add_ques = mysql_query("INSERT INTO assess_questions (question, assess_id)VALUES('$escape','$assess_id')") or die(mysql_error());
	echo "$escape added successfully<br>";
	}
}else{
echo "error building array";
}

}else{
echo "invalid page request.";
}

 

That script always returns the "error building array" string, so its proven that the $_POST['ques'] is not forming an array for each of the text boxes.

 

Where am I going wrong?

 

I have made a script like this before, but with checkboxes instead of textareas, and that script worked fine....  whats going on?!

[ManiacDan]

print_r($_POST), see what's in there.

 

-Dan

[camead]

it comes out as :

 

Array  .... Lol, but apparently the is_array() test is failing...  i dont get it!!

[ManiacDan]

You did a print_r($_POST) and you got array() and that's it?  Then it's empty.

 

Also note that print_r($_POST) should ALWAYS give you an array, the key is to look at the output and see what $_POST['ques'] is.  I'm guess it's not an array or it doesn't even exist.

 

-Dan

[camead]

Dan, thanks for your help, but I have figured out the problem.  On my connect file this was creating the problem :

 

if(!get_magic_quotes_gpc())
{
  $_POST = array_map('mysql_real_escape_string', $_POST);
  $_GET = array_map('mysql_real_escape_string', $_GET); 
  $_COOKIE = array_map('mysql_real_escape_string', $_COOKIE);
}
else
{  
   $_GET = array_map('stripslashes', $_GET); 
   $_POST = array_map('stripslashes', $_POST); 
   $_COOKIE = array_map('stripslashes', $_COOKIE);
   $_GET = array_map('mysql_real_escape_string', $_GET); 
   $_POST = array_map('mysql_real_escape_string', $_POST); 
   $_COOKIE = array_map('mysql_real_escape_string', $_COOKIE);
}

 

so what i did was put an

if(!defined('raw_input')){
}

 

Around it, then defined the raw input on the page to cut this out, and it worked seemlessly.  Just means I have to include addslashes() on each $_POST

 

Cheers!

[PFMaBiSmAd]

A better solution would be to write your own recursive function to use in array_map().

 

Your function would test if what it was passed is an array. If so, it calls array_map() again, else it returns the result of using mysql_real_escape_string on the value.

[camead]

Obviously I am complete Newb compared to you!  could you give me an example of what you mean?! or what this might look like?

[PFMaBiSmAd]

function escape_deep($value){
if(is_array($value)){
	$value = array_map('escape_deep', $value);
} else {
	if(get_magic_quotes_gpc()){
		$value = stripslashes($value);
	} else {
		$value = mysql_real_escape_string($value);
	}
}
    return $value;
}

$_GET = array_map('escape_deep', $_GET);
$_POST = array_map('escape_deep', $_POST);
$_COOKIE = array_map('escape_deep', $_COOKIE);