How to POST data as an indexed array of arrays (without specifying indexes)

Question

i\'m having some problem with posting data as an array of array. This is how i\'d like my data to be POSTED:

array(
[\'someName\'] =>
array([0] =>
             


        

Answer 1

Do it the way you put in the question. If the user removes some row, your form elements would be:

<form action="..." method="post" onsubmit="return reindexer(this);">
    <input type='text' name="someName[0][value]">
    <input type='text' name="someName[0][description]">
    <input type='text' name="someName[2][value]">
    <input type='text' name="someName[2][description]">
</form>

But there's no problem to traverse an array with non-contiguous numeric indexes in php: use a foreach loop.

<?php
if (count($_POST['somename']) > 0)
{
    foreach ($_POST['somename'] as $row)
    {
        echo "Value: ".$row['value']."<br />\n";
        echo "Description: ".$row['description']."<br />\n";
    }
}

If you need to know the number of each row as a continous index (in the example provided, row 0 would still be 0, but row 2 should be 1 (as the user deleted one row), you can use a variable acting as a counter:

<?php
if (count($_POST['somename']) > 0)
{
    $i = 0;
    foreach ($_POST['somename'] as $row)
    {
        echo "Index $i<br />\n";
        echo "Value: ".$row['value']."<br />\n";
        echo "Description: ".$row['description']."<br />\n";
        $i++;
    }
}

I think this approach has more sense that the other solutions, as this way you would have an array of items, being each item a value and a description, instead of having two separate arrays of values and descriptions and having to get the values for your item from those two arrays instead of one.

edit: I've modified the first piece of code to include the <form> element. This would be the accompanying js function:

<script type="text/javascript">
function reindexer(frm)
{
    var counter = 0;
    var inputsPerRow = 2;
    for (var idx = 0; idx < frm.elements.length; idx++)
    {
        elm.name = elm.name.replace('%%INDEX%%', counter);
        if (idx % inputsPerRow == 1)
        {
            // only increment the counter (or row number) after you've processed all the
            // inputs from each row
            counter++;
        }
    }
}
</script>

Answer 2

Try like this:

<input type='text' name="someNameValue[]">
<input type='text' name="someNameDescription[]">

If the fields are paired, they can be attached by the indexes. So if you have the 10th row, someNameValue[9] and someNameDescription[9] will be a pair. You can merge them.

EDIT: You don't have to write the indexes manually, they will be automatically generated.

<input type='text' name="someName[]">
<input type='text' name="someName[]">
<input type='text' name="someName[]">

and

<input type='text' name="someName[0]">
<input type='text' name="someName[1]">
<input type='text' name="someName[2]">

will give the same result in your post array.