HTML form with multiple hidden control elements of the same name

Question

Is it legal to have an HTML form with more than one \"hidden\" control element with the same name? I expect to get the values of all of these elements at the server. If it i

Answer 1

Yes, and most application servers will collect the matching elements and concatenate them with commas, such that a form like this:

... would resolve to a URL (in the GET case -- POST would work the same way, though) like this:

http://myhost.com/myscript.asp?myHidden=1&myHidden=2&myHidden=3

... and would be exposed to you in code like this: (e.g., following something like Response.Write(Request.QueryString("myHidden")):

1, 2, 3

So to grab the values, you'd just split the string and access them as an array (or whatever's comparable in your language of choice).

(Should be clarified: In PHP, it's slightly different (as Johnathan points out, bracket notation exposes the items as an array to your PHP code), but ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion all expose the values as a comma-separated list. So yes, the duplicate naming is completely valid.)