How to manipulate $ REQUEST

I'm trying to dynamically add forms

[peco]

Hi Guys,

I am trying to create a script that will echo an amount of forms, according to a users input. For this, I am using two pages - submit.php and output.php.

In submit.php I have an echo statement and a counter. I appended the counter value onto the form field names so I have a unique name for every field, this part works ok.

<?php
echo '<form method="post" action="output.php"><br>';
 for ($i=0, $j=0; $i<=2; $i++, $j++)
 {
 echo 'Town: Post Code: <br />
 <input name="town' . $j . '" type="text" /><input name="code' . $j . '" type="text" /><br /><br />';
 }
echo '<input type="submit" /><br /></form>';
?>

However, I can't get output.php to echo the correct amount of unique statments, without hardcoding an echo for every variable. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a user defined amount.
I can get the same amount by using the same counter variable that would be set by the user but I can't get the unique field name the same way.

i.e. $town . $i or $_REQUEST['town'] . $i

In other words, something like this doesn't work in output.php

<?php
 for ($i=0, $j=0; $i<=2; $i++, $j++)
 {
 echo 'The postcode for ' . $_REQUEST['town'] . $i . ' is ' . $_REQUEST['code'] . $j . ' Now you know!');<br />';
 }
?>

All I get back is the value of $i and $j instead of the value for town0, town1, town2 and code0, code1, code2.

Obviously I am messing this up big time and I'm not asking anyone to write it for me, I would just like someone to point me in the right direction of the method I should be using.

Thanks in advance!

[eelixduppy]

Change this line:

 <input [b]name="town[]"[/b] type="text" /><input [b]name="code[]"[/b] type="text" /><br /><br />'; 

And on output.php type the following just to view the results:

echo '<pre>';
print_r($_POST['town']);
print_r($_POST['code']);
echo '</pre>';

This puts everything in an array for you instead of you having to use variable variables. Let me know how this works for you :)

[peco]

Hi eelixduppy and thanks!

Definately a forward step. After changing the fieldnames to town[] and code[] then using your code in output.php, the output is this

Array
(
[0] => Romford
[1] => Ilford
[2] => Tonbridge
)

Array
(
[0] => RM
[1] => IG
[2] => TN
)

[eelixduppy]

Now this will enable you to loop through the arrays much easier to output them with the formatting you want. To get the individual values you must use the variables as a multi-dimensional array (because they are):

$_POST['code'][$index]

I hope this is enough to get you started. If you need any more help don't hesitate to ask ;)

[peco]

Yep, I understand and will work at that. Thanks again for your help, I'll let you know how it goes.

[jatar_k]

as an aside

never use $_REQUEST

use $_POST or $_GET or $_COOKIE explicitly, variable overwriting and conflicts are too common with $_REQUEST. There are also some interesting exploits with $_REQUEST

[peco]

eelixduppy,

I have it cracked! New code for submit.php:

<?php

echo '<form method="post" action="output.php"><br>';

for ($i=0; $i<=2; $i++)
{
echo 'Town: Post Code: <br />
<input name="town[]" type="text" /><input name="code[]" type="text" /><br /><br />';
}
echo '<input type="submit" /><br /></form>';

?>

Code for output.php:

<?php

for ($i=0; $i<sizeof($town); $i++)
{
echo 'The postcode for ' . $_POST['town'][$i] . ' is ' . $_POST['code'][$i] . ' Now you know!<br />';
}

?>

Thanks very much for your help, I understand this procedure a lot better now.

jatar_k,

Thank you for that advice. It has been duly noted and taken on board.

[eelixduppy]

Great! Glad you got it sorted :)