Naming multiple select boxes through loop

[FurryGorilla]

Hi

I've set up a table on a page which has product information for each row in the table. Each table row has a select box which is named using

<select name=\"item_no_$i\"/>

where $i is a number that is incremented on each loop.

This then generates a series of select boxes named item_no_0, item_no_1, etc depending on how many products are in the table.

The problem I'm having is being able to access the value that is chosen in each select box. I understand that there will be variables named $item_no_0, $item_no_1 when the form is submitted but how can I access these using the $i variable?


Any help would be much appreciated.
Chris

 

[DRJ478]

You should inspect the $_POST variables.
Have a look what's posted with:

echo "<pre>";
print_r($_POST);
echo "</pre>";

You can loop through the posted values with a foreach() loop construct. Examine the key of the associative array, e.g. item_no_#

foreach($_POST as $key=>$value){
   echo $key." has value ". $value;
}

Hope this will give you an idea how to access the values.

 

[sleipnir214]

Or better still, change the way you name the elements. Instead of a name of the form "item_no_$i", use "item[$i]". When the form is submitted, $_POST['item'] will itself be an array.

One "gotcha" naming elements this way -- JavaScript (and possibly VBScript) cannot access the elements when they're named this say. There is a workaround: create element tags of the form:

<select name="item[1]" id="item_1">

Then in client-side scripting (at least JavaScript), you can reference the elements if necessary using the id instead of the name.


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[FurryGorilla]

Thanks for both of those replies.

I've decided to go with the item[$i] method of naming and that seems to work fine. Thanks for the pointer regarding accessing the elements via javascript. Although I probably won't be using any client-side scripting it's always good to know

Thanks once again
Chris

 

[Olavxxx]

An offtopic tip:

If you wish to have it SELECTED, please use

selected="selected"

I see a lot of people use only SELECTED.
Also all tags are preferred in lowercase, not UPPERCASE.

You might already know this.

Olav Alexander Mjelde

http://www.volvo-power.net

Admin & Webmaster

 

[FurryGorilla]

Yep, don't worry. I've been validating my xhtml as I go along so no uppercase tags or short selects.