Combining variables into an array

[steve m]

Hi All,

I have this problem, I'm not even sure if this can be done.  I have this form where I have a drop down list for a quantity of serial numbers.  When a user selects a numbers from that list I have some JavaScript to dynamically create the number of Text Boxes selected.  In the JavaScript, the name of the text box is serial_num and a number is added at the end of the name ex. serial_num0, serial_num1, etc...  Anyways, what I want to do is to take the serial numbers from the form and create a separate record for each in a MySQL database.

The problem I am having is that since the serial_num fields have numbers at the end of the field names I can't seem to come up with some kind of loop to separate those different serial numbers.  Is there a way I can combine all of those serial number fields into an array to try to get the results that I want?  If that can be done, I'm lost on how to do that coming from a form submission.

[HuggieBear]

Sure, rather than using javascript to call the fields serial_num0 serial_num1 etc, get it to call all the fields the same thing.  Get it to call them all [color=green]serial_num[][/color].

Then php can access them by using the following:

[code]<?php
foreach ($_REQUEST['serial_num'] as $serial){
  echo "$serial<br>\n";
}
?>[/code]

Regards
Huggie

[important]

Create a text-field as "fields_count" and when fields are added/removed using javascript, this field value should be updated accordingly. Then you can run a loop such as this:

[code=php:0]
$fields_count = intval($_POST['fields_count']);
for ($i = 0; $i <= count($fields_count); $i++)
{
      if (empty($_POST['serial_num'.$i])) {
            continue;
      }

      // or here, do anything you like with the data now... it's in $_POST['serial_num' . $i] ....
}
[/code]

[obsidian]

Huggie's suggestion, IMHO, is going to be your best bet here since it won't matter how many additional fields they add. You just need to run a count() on the $_POST['serial_num'] field to see how many they submitted.

[steve m]

Great! Thanks HuggieBear that did the trick. 

Thanks a lot to everyone’s comments.  That helped me out a lot!