Receiving Form Data in Custom Arrays
| Here's a useful tidbit: PHP lets you organize the data you get from a form in your own custom arrays. For example, say you wanted to ask for the user's name and favorite color and would like to have that data stored as $text['name'] and $text['color']. You tell PHP how to do that by giving each text field control a name with square brackets, such as texTData[name], as you see in Example 6-7, phptextarray.html. Example 6-7. HTML for custom arrays example, phptextarray.html<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Using Text Fields </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <CENTER> <H1>Using Text Fields</H1> <FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="phptextarray.php"> What's your name? <INPUT NAME="textdata[name]" TYPE="TEXT"> <BR> <BR> What's your favorite color? <INPUT NAME="textdata[color]" TYPE="TEXT"> <BR> <BR> <INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE=Submit> </FORM> </CENTER> </BODY> </HTML> This page appears in Figure 6-7. Figure 6-7. A custom array example. To store this data in an array that we'll call $text, you simply use "textdata" as a key in the $_REQUEST array, as shown in Example 6-8, phptextarray.php. Example 6-8. Using custom arrays, phptextarray.php<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Using Text Field Arrays </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <CENTER> <H1>Retrieving Data From Text Field Arrays</H1> Your name is <?php $text = $_REQUEST['textdata']; echo $text['name'], "<BR>"; ?> Your favorite color is <?php $text = $_REQUEST['textdata']; echo $text['color'], "<BR>"; ?> </CENTER> </BODY> </HTML> The results appear in Figure 6-8, where, as you can see, we've let PHP organize our data into a custom array to make things easier for us. Figure 6-8. Getting data from custom arrays. |
