来自 PHP 之外的变量

HTML 表单(GET 和 POST)

当一个表单体交给 PHP 脚本时,表单中的信息会自动在脚本中可用。有很多方法访问此信息,例如:

例子 12-8. 一个简单的 HTML 表单

<form action="foo.php" method="POST">
    Name:  <input type="text" name="username"><br />
    Email: <input type="text" name="email"><br />
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit me!" />
</form>

根据特定的设置和个人的喜好,有很多种方法访问 HTML 表单中的数据。例如:

例子 12-9. 从一个简单的 POST HTML 表单访问数据

<?php
// 自 PHP 4.1.0 起可用
   echo $_POST['username'];
   echo $_REQUEST['username'];
   import_request_variables('p', 'p_');
   echo $p_username;
// 自 PHP 3 起可用。自 PHP 5.0.0 起,这些较长的预定义变量
// 可用 register_long_arrays 指令关闭。
   echo $HTTP_POST_VARS['username'];
// 如果 PHP 指令 register_globals = on 时可用。不过自
// PHP 4.2.0 起默认值为 register_globals = off。
// 不提倡使用/依赖此种方法。
   echo $username;
?>

使用 GET 表单也类似,只不过要用适当的 GET 预定义变量。GET 也适用于 QUERY_STRING(URL 中在“?”之后的信息)。因此,举例说,http://www.example.com/test.php?id=3 包含有可用 $_GET['id'] 访问的 GET 数据。参见 $_REQUESTimport_request_variables()

注: 超全局变量$_POST 以及 $_GET 一样,自 PHP 4.1.0 起可用。

如上所示,在 PHP 4.2.0 之前 register_globals 的默认值是 on。在 PHP 3 中其值总是 on。PHP 社区鼓励大家不要依赖此指令,建议在编码时假定其为 off

注: magic_quotes_gpc 配置指令影响到 Get,Post 和 Cookie 的值。如果打开,值 (It's "PHP!") 会自动转换成 (It\'s \"PHP!\")。数据库的插入就需要转义。参见 addslashes()stripslashes()magic_quotes_sybase

PHP 也懂得表单变量上下文中的数组(参见相关常见问题)。例如可以将相关的变量编成组,或者用此特性从多选输入框中取得值。例如,将一个表单 POST 给自己并在提交时显示数据:

例子 12-10. 更复杂的表单变量

<?php
if (isset($_POST['action']) && $_POST['action'] == 'submitted') {
    echo
'<pre>';

    
print_r($_POST);
    echo
'<a href="'. $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] .'">Please try again</a>';

    echo
'</pre>';
} else {
?>
<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
    Name:  <input type="text" name="personal[name]"><br />
    Email: <input type="text" name="personal[email]"><br />
    Beer: <br>
    <select multiple name="beer[]">
        <option value="warthog">Warthog</option>
        <option value="guinness">Guinness</option>
        <option value="stuttgarter">Stuttgarter Schwabenbr</option>
    </select><br />
    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="submitted" />
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit me!" />
</form>
<?php
}
?>

在 PHP 3 中,变量使用中的数组仅限于一维数组。在 PHP 4 中,没有此种限制。

IMAGE SUBMIT 变量名

当提交表单时,可以用一幅图像代替标准的提交按钮,用类似这样的标记:

<input type="image" src="image.gif" name="sub" />

当用户点击到图像中的某处时,相应的表单会被传送到服务器,并加上两个变量 sub_x 和 sub_y。它们包含了用户点击图像的坐标。有经验的用户可能会注意到被浏览器发送的实际变量名包含的是一个点而不是下划线(即 sub.x 和 sub.y),但 PHP 自动将点转换成了下划线。

HTTP Cookies

PHP 透明地支持 Netscape 规范定义中的 HTTP cookies。Cookies 是一种在远端浏览器端存储数据并能追踪或识别再次访问的用户的机制。可以用 setcookie() 函数设定 cookies。Cookies 是 HTTP 信息头中的一部分,因此 SetCookie 函数必须在向浏览器发送任何输出之前调用。对于 header() 函数也有同样的限制。Cookie 数据会在相应的 cookie 数据数组中可用,例如 $_COOKIE$HTTP_COOKIE_VARS$_REQUEST。更多细节和例子见 setcookie() 手册页面。

如果要将多个值赋给一个 cookie 变量,必须将其赋成数组。例如:

<?php
  setcookie
("MyCookie[foo]", 'Testing 1', time()+3600);
  
setcookie("MyCookie[bar]", 'Testing 2', time()+3600);
?>

这将会建立两个单独的 cookie,尽管 MyCookie 在脚本中是一个单一的数组。如果想在仅仅一个 cookie 中设定多个值,考虑先在值上使用 serialize()explode()

注意在浏览器中一个 cookie 会替换掉上一个同名的 cookie,除非路径或者域不同。因此对于购物车程序可以保留一个计数器并一起传递,例如:

例子 12-11. 一个 setcookie() 的示例

<?php
if (isset($_COOKIE['count'])) {
    
$count = $_COOKIE['count'] + 1;
} else {
    
$count = 1;
}
setcookie('count', $count, time()+3600);
setcookie("Cart[$count]", $item, time()+3600);
?>

变量名中的点

通常,PHP 不会改变传递给脚本中的变量名。然而应该注意到点(句号)不是 PHP 变量名中的合法字符。至于原因,看看:
<?php
$varname
.ext;  /* 非法变量名 */
?>
这时,解析器看到是一个名为 $varname 的变量,后面跟着一个字符串连接运算符,后面跟着一个裸字符串(即没有加引号的字符串,且不匹配任何已知的健名或保留字)'ext'。很明显这不是想要的结果。

出于此原因,要注意 PHP 将会自动将变量名中的点替换成下划线。

确定变量类型

因为 PHP 会判断变量类型并在需要时进行转换(通常情况下),因此在某一时刻给定的变量是何种类型并不明显。PHP 包括几个函数可以判断变量的类型,例如:gettype()is_array()is_float()is_int()is_object()is_string()。参见类型一章。


add a note add a note User Contributed Notes
Hyan Christian
25-May-2006 03:51
Just to complete Murat TASARSU's post in this page.
I hope this will help anyone who is going to add it with fsockopen

<html>
  <body>
   <form method="post" action="">
     <input name="fruit" value="banana" /><br />
     <input name="color" value="yellow" /><br />
     <input type="submit" value="Click It">
   </form>
   <br />
   <b>POST</b> :
<?php
$be_var
= $_POST;
foreach (
$be_var as $key => $value ) {
$be_var = $be_var."&".$key."=".$value;
}
echo
str_replace( "Array&", "", $be_var ); // fruit=banana&color=yellow
?>
  </body>
</html>
ch1902uk at hotmail dot com
19-Mar-2006 03:47
Regarding image input buttons, above where it says:

"When the user clicks somewhere on the image, the accompanying form will be transmitted to the server with two *additional* variables, sub_x and sub_y. These contain the coordinates of the user click within the image."

This is the case with Firefox (and probably other standards browsers), however my experience with Internet Explorer is that when image inputs are clicked, they only submit the location of the click on the button and *not* the name of the input.

So if you have a form to move/delete entries like this

entry[]  [delete_0] [up_0] [down_0]
entry[]  [delete_1] [up_1] [down_1]
entry[]  [delete_2] [up_2] [down_2]

Then submitting the form in firefox will give you post variables such as

<?php
   $_POST
['delete_2'];  // "Delete" - button value
  
$_POST['delete_2_x'];  // 23 - x coord
  
$_POST['delete_2_y'];  // 3 - y coord
?>

In IE you only get

<?php
   $_POST
['delete_2_x'];  // 23 - x coord
  
$_POST['delete_2_y'];  // 3 - y coord
?>

So if you are checking for what button was clicked do something like this

<?php
  
for ($i = 0; $i < count($_POST['entry']); $i++)
   {
     if (isset(
$_POST['delete_' . $i . '_x']))
     {
        
// do delete
    
}
   }
?>
IMarvinTPA at bigfoot dot com
21-Nov-2005 01:52
I saw a note from
jan.gacioch at motorola dot com
posted on
19-Feb-2004 11:52
"Just a correction regarding 'cscotti@ifrance' contribution: code '$first = $item_value;' should be place just BEFORE the 'else if' condition and NOT AFTER."

This is not true, if the form has things posted in an unusual order, the $first value will be from a completely different variable.

Also, nobody mentioned this, but in the PHP.ini file there is an option called "always_populate_raw_post_data".  It'll fill in that variable.  It took me a while to find it.

I think it is bad to consider form name fields to be case sensitive, so my version uses all uppercase form values.

I also use a Request function to pull the data out of the global variables so I don't get warnings or errors when I try to access an undefined variable.  I usually just want an empty string for them.  (I have the same for Session and Server.)

UCase is shorter than strtoupper and I have a lot of converted ASP code and it was easier to create alias functions than to replace them.

<?

$_ATBREQUEST
= multi_post_item();

function
multi_post_item() {
  
$rawpost = Globals('HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA');
  
$array_output = array();
  
$raw_input_items = split("&", addbit3(Server("QUERY_STRING"), $rawpost, "&"));
   foreach (
$raw_input_items as $input_item) {
      
// split this item into name/value pair
       //Print $input_item . BR;
      
if ($input_item != "") {
          
$item = split("=", $input_item);
          
// form item name
          
$item_name = ucase(urldecode($item[0]));
          
// form item value
          
if (empty($item[1]))
              
$item_value = "";
           else
              
$item_value = urldecode($item[1]);
          
           if ( !isset(
$array_output[$item_name]) ) {
              
$array_output[$item_name] = $item_value;           
           } elseif ( !
is_array($array_output[$item_name]) ) {
              
$first = $array_output[$item_name];
              
$array_output[$item_name] = array();
              
$array_output[$item_name][]= $first;
              
$array_output[$item_name][]= $item_value;
           } else {
              
$array_output[$item_name][]= $item_value;
           }
       }
   }
   return
$array_output;
}

function
Request2($param){
   if (empty(
$_REQUEST[$param])) {
       return
"";
   }
   else
       return
$_REQUEST[$param];
}

function
Request($param){
   global
$_ATBREQUEST;
  
$uparam = ucase($param);
   if (empty(
$_ATBREQUEST[$uparam])) {
       return
Request2($param);
   }
   else{
       if (
is_array($_ATBREQUEST[$uparam])){
           return
implode(", ", $_ATBREQUEST[$uparam]);
       }
       else
           return
$_ATBREQUEST[$uparam];
   }
}
//We want the array
function RequestArray($param){
   global
$_ATBREQUEST;
  
$uparam = ucase($param);
   if (empty(
$_ATBREQUEST[$uparam])) {
       return array(
Request2($param));
   }
   else{
       return
$_ATBREQUEST[$uparam];
   }
}
//AddBit 1 and 2 are commas and semicolons respectively.
function AddBit3($mystr, $mynew, $mysep) {
   if (
$mystr . "" == "")
      
$mystr = $mynew;
   else
      
$mystr .= $mysep . $mynew;
   return
$mystr;
}

function
Server($param){
   if (empty(
$_SERVER[$param]))
       return
"";
   else
       return
$_SERVER[$param];
}

function
UCase($str){
   return
strtoupper($str);
}

?>
aescomputer AT yahoo DOT com
28-Oct-2005 02:01
Here are two usefull functions for forms:

<?php
// clean html tags out of url attributes
  
if(!empty($_REQUEST)){
       foreach(
$_REQUEST as $x => $y){
          
$_REQUEST[$x] = str_replace('<', '&lt;', str_replace('>', '&gt;', $y));
       }
   }

// replace carrage returns in url attributes with <br>
  
if(!empty($_REQUEST)){
       foreach(
$_REQUEST as $x => $y){
          
$_REQUEST[$x] = str_replace("\n", '<br>', $y);
       }
   }
?>
mordae at mordae dot net
17-Jul-2005 08:47
Small note to previous post; $this can not be redeclared in PHP 5.
Jonas Lindel
11-Jul-2005 06:49
Here is my solution to the following annoying problems:
 - When POSTing data and updating/going back one page, an annoying message appears from the browser since the POST data has been preserved.
 - External user-inputs (POST and GET) are devided into two arrays (POST and GET).

Problems often solved with rather exotic solutions, dependent on the specific context. This is my exotic solution, independent of context. A little code-block to be copy-pasted to the top of the desired PHP document. Performing in about 0.1 ms, session_start() not included + around 0.01 ms pr. input variable.
Filestreams and URL modifications must be executed before this class is executed.

Overview: collects POST and GET data in a class. When data is POSTed, the data is serialized into a session variable, page is reloaded (without POST data) and the data is unserialized into the class again for use through the rest of the document.

<?PHP
session_start
();

class
_xvar {
   function
_xvar() {
       if(!
$_SESSION['xvars_serialized']) {
          
// If data has just been recieved, it is saved in $this and the current URL is builded.
          
foreach ($_GET as $key => $value) $this->{$key} = $value;
           foreach(
$_POST as $key => $value) $this->{$key} = $value;
          
$this->doc_url = 'http://' .$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] .$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] .'?' .$_SERVER['argv'][0];
          
          
// If no POST data is recieved, nothing more is to be done. If POST data is recieved it is serialized to session and the page is redirected to itself with GET data but without POST data.
          
if($_POST) {
              
$_SESSION['xvars_serialized'] = serialize($this);
              
header('Location: ' .$this->doc_url);
               exit();
           }
       }

      
// Just after the above redirecting, GET and POST data is unserialized into the object.
      
else {
          
$this = unserialize($_SESSION['xvars_serialized']);
          
$_SESSION['xvars_serialized'] = 0;
       }
   }
}
$_XVAR = new _xvar;

// Calling the data throughout the document.
echo $_XVAR->foo;
?>

I find it very useful in my project-management systems with lots of forms and links as user-inputs. The code is completly $_GET and $_POST free! :-)
krydprz at iit dot edu
04-May-2005 04:14
This post is with regards to handling forms that have more than one submit button.

Suppose we have an HTML form with a submit button specified like this:

<input type="submit" value="Delete" name="action_button">

Normally the 'value' attribute of the HTML 'input' tag (in this case "Delete") that creates the submit button can be accessed in PHP after post like this:

<?
$_POST
['action_button'];
?>

We of course use the 'name' of the button as an index into the $_POST array.

This works fine, except when we want to pass more information with the click of this particular button.

Imagine a scenario where you're dealing with user management in some administrative interface.  You are presented with a list of user names queried from a database and wish to add a "Delete" and "Modify" button next to each of the names in the list.  Naturally the 'value' of our buttons in the HTML form that we want to display will be "Delete" and "Modify" since that's what we want to appear on the buttons' faceplates.

Both buttons (Modify and Delete) will be named "action_button" since that's what we want to index the $_POST array with.  In other words, the 'name' of the buttons along cannot carry any uniquely identifying information if we want to process them systematically after submit. Since these buttons will exist for every user in the list, we need some further way to distinguish them, so that we know for which user one of the buttons has been pressed.

Using arrays is the way to go.  Assuming that we know the unique numerical identifier of each user, such as their primary key from the database, and we DON'T wish to protect that number from the public, we can make the 'action_button' into an array and use the user's unique numerical identifier as a key in this array.

Our HTML code to display the buttons will become:

<input type="submit" value="Delete" name="action_button[0000000002]">
<input type="submit" value="Modify" name="action_button[0000000002]">

The 0000000002 is of course the unique numerical identifier for this particular user.

Then when we handle this form in PHP we need to do the following to extract both the 'value' of the button ("Delete" or "Modify") and the unique numerical identifier of the user we wish to affect (0000000002 in this case). The following will print either "Modify" or "Delete", as well as the unique number of the user:

<?
$submitted_array
= array_keys($_POST['action_button']);
echo (
$_POST['action_button'][$submitted_array[0]] . " " . $submitted_array[0]);
?>

$submitted_array[0] carries the 0000000002.
When we index that into the $_POST['action_button'], like we did above, we will extract the string that was used as 'value' in the HTML code 'input' tag that created this button.

If we wish to protect the unique numerical identifier, we must use some other uniquely identifying attribute of each user. Possibly that attribute should be encrypted when output into the form for greater security.

Enjoy!
user: "someuser" at mai1server "ua.fm"
03-May-2005 03:17
Numerous string like:

if (isset($_POST["var1"]))
   $var1=$_POST["var1"];
else $var1='';
...
if (isset($_POST["varN"]))
   $varN=$_POST["varN"];
else $varN='';

Can be replaced with:

get_superglobal_vars_from_POST('var1',...,'varN');

function get_superglobal_vars_from_POST()
{
   $numargs = func_num_args();
   $setargs = 0; // for counting set variables
   for ($i=0; $i<$numargs; $i++)
   {
   $varname=func_get_arg($i);
   if (!isset($_POST[$varname]))
       $result='';
   else
   {
       $result=$_POST[$varname];
       $setargs++;
   }   
   $GLOBALS["$varname"]=$result;
   }
   return $setargs; // who cares?
}
tim at timpauly dot com
30-Apr-2005 09:57
This code module can be added to every form using require_once().
It will process any and all form data, prepending each variable with
a unique identifier (so you know which method was used to get the data).

My coding could be neater, but this sure makes processing forms much easier!

<?php
// -----------------------------------------------------------------
// Basic Data PHP module. This module captures all GET, POST
// and COOKIE data and processes it into variables.
// Coded April, 2005 by Timothy J. Pauly
// www.timpauly.com
// -----------------------------------------------------------------
//
// coo_ is prepended to each cookie variable
// get_ is prepended to each GET variable
// pos_ is prepended to each POST variable
// ses_ is prepended to each SESSION variable
// ser_ is prepended to each SERVER variable

session_start(); // initialize session data
$ArrayList = array("_POST", "_GET", "_SESSION", "_COOKIE", "_SERVER"); // create an array of the autoglobal arrays
// we want to process

foreach($ArrayList as $gblArray) // process each array in the array list
{
  
$prefx = strtolower(substr($gblArray,1,3))."_"; // derive the prepend string
// from the autoglobal type name
  
$tmpArray = $$gblArray;
  
$keys = array_keys($tmpArray); // extract the keys from the array being processed
  
foreach($keys as $key) // process each key
  
{
      
  
$arcnt = count($tmpArray[$key]);
  
   if (
$arcnt > 1) // Break down passed arrays and
// process each element seperately
  
{
    
$lcount = 0;
     foreach (
$tmpArray[$key] as $dval)
       {
          
$prkey = $prefx.$key; // create a new key string
// with the prepend string added
          
$prdata['$prkey'] = $dval; // this step could be eliminated
          
${$prkey}[$lcount] = $prdata['$prkey']; //create new key and insert the data
          
$lcount++;
       }
    
       } else {
// process passed single variables
      
              
$prkey = $prefx.$key; // create a new key string
// with the prepend string added
              
$prdata['$prkey'] = $tmpArray[$key]; // insert the data from
// the old array into the new one
              
$$prkey = $prdata['$prkey']; // create the newly named
// (prepended) key pair using variable variables :-)
              
              
              
}
   }
}

// -------------------------------------------------------------
?>
tmk-php at infeline dot org
09-Apr-2005 12:38
To handle forms with or without [] you can do something like this:

   function repairPost($data) {
       // combine rawpost and $_POST ($data) to rebuild broken arrays in $_POST
       $rawpost = "&".file_get_contents("php://input");
       while(list($key,$value)= each($data)) {
           $pos = preg_match_all("/&".$key."=([^&]*)/i",$rawpost, $regs, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);       
           if((!is_array($value)) && ($pos > 1)) {
               $qform[$key] = array();
               for($i = 0; $i < $pos; $i++) {
                   $qform[$key][$i] = urldecode($regs[1][$i]);
               }
           } else {
               $qform[$key] = $value;
           }
       }
       return $qform;
   }

   // --- MAIN

   $_POST = repairPost($_POST);

The function will check every field in the $_POST with the raw post data and rebuild the arrays that got lost.
agup at cpr dot org
16-Mar-2005 09:43
If you have multiple checkboxes that you want to submit from an html form to process elsewhere, you might try using this methodology:

1) create a unique id number for each row in the table
2) assign that unique row id to each checkbox input name
3) pass the total number of rows as a hidden value in the form
4) recover all the checkbox booleans by iterating through all the unique settings.
5) on the downstream page you can assign any value you want to the variable before writing it to the database or whatever you need to do. For example; you can assign the value 0 if the boolean for the checkbox is FALSE.

row=0;
do{
<form name="some_name" action="some_action.php" method="post">
<td><input type="checkbox" name="unique_item[<?echo$row?>]">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="row_count" value="<?echo$row?>"></INPUT>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" name="....">
.
.
row++;
}
while (something);
</table>
</form>

Upon submit, all the unique checkbox booleans can then be recovered on another PHP page using:

$some_data = $_POST['some_data'];
$row_count = $_POST['row_count'];

$row=0;
do {

if($some_data[$row]){
...do something...e.g. assign a variable, write to db, etc.
}

if(!$some_data[$row]){
...do something...e.g. assign a variable, write to db, etc.
}

$row++;
}

while ($row<$row_count);

I left out alot of syntax since this example is simply illustrative to cover multiple scenarios. Don't forget to always validate form data before entering it into a database. I hope this helps.
Murat TASARSU
03-Mar-2005 08:29
if you want your multiple select returned variable in comma seperated form you can use this. hope that helps. regards...

$myvariable
   Array ( [0] => one [1] => two [2] => three )
turns into
   one,two,three

<?php
$myvariable
="";
$myseperator="";
foreach (
$_POST["myvariable"] as $v) {
if (!isset(
$nofirstcomma)) $nofirstcomma=0; else $myseperator=",";
$myvariable = $myvariable.$myseperator.$v;
}
echo
$myvariable;
?>
jlratwil at yahoo dot com
02-Feb-2005 09:35
To get multiple selected (with "multiple" ) lists in <select> tag, make sure that the "name" attribute is added to braces, like this:

<select multiple="multiple" name="users[]">
     <option value="foo">Foo</option>
     <option value="bar">Bar</option>
</select>

When submitted to PHP file (assume that you have a complete form) it will return an array of strings. Otherwise, it will just return the last element of the <select> tag you selected.
__kbanks at (__ignoreunderscores) dot gmail dot com
17-Jan-2005 07:05
Hi all:

I'm presently building a solution to programmatically build, view, and validate HTML forms when I came across the ol' PHP non-scalar form variable handling problem.  Because my form validator class would really have no way of knowing if a given form variable was meant to be scalar or not, I decided to TREAT ALL PHP FORM VARIABLES AS ARRAYS, i.e., to use the '[]' syntax for all variables, scalar or not.  This way, the form designer need not remember to specify the '[]' syntax, and the Form->HTML transformer need not scan for every input within the form, looking for duplicate names.  This also eliminates the risk of losing data you meant to keep in an array but to which you forgot to apply the '[]' syntax. 

You may then either treat all form variables as arrays in your form handling code, or you may, as I intend to do, filter each HTML request through a Front Controller (desc. in Fowler, PoEAA).  The Front Controller would convert all arrays of length 1 to a scalar variable and leave multi-element arrays as they are.  This should essentially convert PHP's handling of non-scalar form variables to that of ASP's (or slightly better, since multiple form values of the same name will actually be arrays, not just comma-seperated values). 

This way my Form Validator class can just check if the input to validate is an array, and then apply some constraint across each element in the array.
dreptack at op dot pl
03-Jan-2005 04:33
I needed to post html form through image input element. But my problem was I had to use multiple image-buttons, each one for a single row of form table. Pressing the button was mention to tell script to delete this row from table and also (in the same request) save other data from the form table.
I wrote simple test-script to see what variable I should check for in a script:

I have a html document:

<form action="test.php" method="post">
<input type="image" name="varscalar" src="/images/no.gif" />
<input type="image" name="vararray[12]" src="/images/no.gif" />
</form>

And a php script:
<?php
 
if ($_POST) {
   echo
"post: <pre>"; print_r($_POST); echo '</pre>';
  }
?>

What I've discovered suprised me a lot.

After hitting on varscalar:

post:
Array
(
   [varscalar_x] => 6
   [varscalar_y] => 7
)

After hitting on upper right corner of vararray:

post:
Array
(
   [vararray] => Array
       (
           [12] => 2
       )

)

This mean when clicking on image-type input element, which name is an array, only y-part of a value is remembered.

The result is the same on: php 4.1.2 on Win98se, php 4.3.9-1 on linux
mattij at nitro fi no at no dot no
05-Nov-2004 11:39
If you try to refer or pass HTML-form data which has arrays with javascript remember that you should point to that array like this

<script type="text/javascript">
   window.opener.document.forms[0]["to[where][we][point]"];
</script>
pascal dot poncet at netconsult dot com
28-Oct-2004 11:33
Concerning the use of both javascript and php in working with forms :

In a php code, it's quiet easy and practical to use names like "fieldname[]" in checkbox input type html elements. You will then retrieve the value(s) transmitted in the "fieldname" array type variable.

But a difficulty appears in coding some javascript function able to manipulate those fields values to verify them, as "fieldname[]" must not be recognize directly as an array in the script.

Here is a nice way to solve this question :

(html code)
  <form method="post" action="..." onsubmit="return verifyForm(this)">
   <input type="checkbox" name="colors[]" value="black"> black<br>
   <input type="checkbox" name="colors[]" value="white"> white<br>
   <input type="checkbox" name="colors[]" value="other"> other color<br>
  </form>

(javascript code)
  function verifyForm(form) {
   var selColors=new String();
   for(i=0;i<form["colors[]"].length;i++)
     if(form["colors[]"][i].checked) selColors+=form["colors[]"][i].value;
   if(selColors=="") msgErr="You have to check at least one choice of color";
   ...
  }

Of course, you may also verify anything else about the checked values, like the value itself, only by using 'form["colors[]"][i].value' instead of '...checked'.

Happy to help you,
Pascal

PS : apologying for my bad english.
&#20219;&#20384;(hsh_crack at tom dot com)
04-Aug-2004 03:12
a simple example:

<?
if(!isset($_POST["username"]))
{
?>
<form action=<? echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?> method="post">
&#22995;&#21517;:<input type="text" name="username"><br>
&#30005;&#23376;&#37038;&#20214;:<input type="text" name="email"><br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="&#25552;&#20132;">
</form>
<?
}
else{echo
$_POST["username"];} ?>
lennynyktyk at yahoo dot com
10-Jul-2004 05:42
When dealing with multiple select boxes and the name=some_name[] so that PHP will understand that is needs to interpet the input as an array an not as a single value. If you want to access this in Javascript you should assign an id attribute to the select box as well as the name attribute. Then proceed to use the id attribute in Javascript to reference the select box and the name attribute to reference the select box in PHP.
Example

<select multiple id="select_id" name="select_name[]">
....

</select>

<?PHP
  
echo $select_name[0];
?>

<script language="javascript">
  document.forms[0].select_id.options[0].selected = true;
</script>

I hope you get the idea
arjini at mac dot com
27-Mar-2004 03:48
When dealing with form inputs named_like_this[5] and javascript, instead of trying to get PHP to do something fancy as mentioned below, just try this on the javascript side of things:

<form name="myForm">

<script>
my_fancy_input_name = 'array_of_things[1]';
/* now just refer to it like this in the dom tree

document[myForm][my_fancy_input_name].value

etc*/
</script>

<input type="text" name="array_of_things[1]" value="1"/>
</form>

No fancy PHP, in fact, you shouldn't need to change your PHP at all.
jan.gacioch at motorola dot com
20-Feb-2004 03:52
Just a correction regarding 'cscotti@ifrance' contribution: code '$first = $item_value;' should be place just BEFORE the 'else if' condition and NOT AFTER.
So correct code would be:

function multi_post_item() {
   $array_output = array();
   $raw_input_items = split("&", $_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]);
   foreach ($raw_input_items as $input_item) {
       // split this item into name/value pair
       $item = split("=", $input_item);
       // form item name
       $item_name = urldecode($item[0]);
       // form item value
       $item_value = urldecode($item[1]);
       if ( !isset($array_output[$item_name]) ) {
           $array_output[$item_name] = $item_value;
           $first = $item_value;
       } elseif ( !is_array($array_output[$item_name]) ) {
           $array_output[$item_name] = array();
           $array_output[$item_name][]= $first;
           $array_output[$item_name][]= $item_value;
       } else {
           $array_output[$item_name][]= $item_value;
       }
   }
   return $array_output;
}
epr3
12-Feb-2004 05:40
there is more simple to generate the checkbox and recognize
which box is clicked

<?php

echo '<script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript">

var t = 0;

</script>'
;

for(
$i = 0 ;$i <5 ;$i++){
 
  echo
'
  <script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript">
 
  t++;
 
  document.writeln(t);
  document.writeln("<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"cbx_foo[]\" value=\"" + t + "\">");
 
  </script>
  '
;
}

foreach(
$_POST['cbx_foo'] as $value) {

   echo
"<BR>You clicked checkbox number " . $value . "\n";   
}

?>
jim at jamesdavis dot it
23-Jan-2004 03:59
How to pass a numerically indexed array.
This is the part inside the form. Notice that the name is not 'english[$r]' which you would normally write, but 'english[]'. PHP adds the index when it receives the post and it starts at 0.

<?php

for ($r=0; $r <= count($english)-1; $r++){
         echo
"<TEXTAREA NAME='english[]'>".$english[$r]."</TEXTAREA>";       
        
}
?>
<?php

And this will get it out at the other end
function retrieve_english(){
   for (
$r=0; $r <= count($_POST['english'])-1; $r++){
       echo
$_POST['english'][$r]."<BR>";
   }
}
?>

Keys are useful but so are numerical indices!
Cheers everyone
darren at sullivan dot net
02-Dec-2003 12:37
This function is a simple solution for getting the array of selectes from a checkbox list or a dropdown list out of the Querry String. I took an example posted earlier and simplified it.

function multi_post_item($repeatedString) {
   // Gets the specified array of multiple selects and/or
   // checkboxes from the Query String
   $ArrayOfItems = array();
   $raw_input_items = split("&", $_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]);
   foreach ($raw_input_items as $input_item) {
       $itemPair = split("=", $input_item);
       if ($itemPair[0] == $repeatedString) {
           $ArrayOfItems[] = $itemPair[1];
       }
   }
   return $ArrayOfItems;
}

Use the name of the field as the agrument. Example:
$Order = $_GET['Order'];
$Name = $_GET['Name'];
$States = multi_post_item('States');
$Products = multi_post_item('Products');

Be sure to check for NULL if there are no selections or boxes checked.
07-Nov-2003 01:07
It's been driving me mad, but I've finally worked out the only way to reliably allow form data to be fed back into a form (for editing a record, for instance) is like this:

echo "<input type='text' name='varname' ";
if(isset($existingvalue))
   echo "value=\"".htmlspecialchars(stripslashes($existingvalue))."\" ";
echo "/>";

This assumes that variables have been escaped (such as addslashes) after being retrieved from the database or after being received from a (probably this) form.

Note the type of quotes used in the code above: the value attribute must use escaped double-quotes, and the echo command must use double-quotes, or errors occur when single quotes appear in the data. htmlspecialchars will protect the form from errors caused by data that contains double quote marks, and it stops errors occurring when triangle brackets < > are present in the data.

Alas, to make your site display properly, you must also use htmlspecialchars every time string data is displayed to the user.

There might be an easier way of allowing data to safely be put back into a form, but if there is, I've spent a lot of time not finding it.
soeren at hattel dot dk
06-Nov-2003 08:07
The decision in PHP to translate a query string like:

a=2&a=3&a=4

into one single variable a=4 is simply strupid!

The "wonderful" hack allowing multiple values to be read only if one uses:

a[]=2&a[]=3&a[]=4

is - at first sight - a nice feature but soon become a pain in the a..!

In ASP and ASPX the first situation is handled as:

a=2,3,4

which is better than the PHP behaviour but still bad (what if your variable values contain commas?).

It seems to me that the proper behaviour would be:

a=2&a=3&a=4

automatically generates an array with all the variables inside. I know this would require proper error handling but evevy things does anyway!
kevinrlat nospam dot ccs dot neu dot edu
08-Aug-2003 01:47
if you use an array of checkboxes to submit info to a database or what have you, be careful of the case when no boxes are checked.  for example:

<form method="post">
<input type="checkbox" name="checkstuff[]" value="0">
<input type="checkbox" name="checkstuff[]" value="1">
<input type="checkbox" name="checkstuff[]" value="2">

. . .

</form>

if these are submitted and none are checked, the $_POST['checkstuff'] variable will not contain an empty array, but a NULL value.  this bothered me when trying to implode() the values of my checkboxes to insert into a database, i got a warning saying the 2nd argument was the wrong type. 

hope this helps!
-kevin
nospam at thenerdshow dot calm
12-Jul-2003 06:04
I've combined the method of converting old code suggested by solar at heliacal dot net into the improved script below.  This one works whether the submit is get or post and, as in my previous contribution, sets any unsubmitted variables to null, preventing errors.  This supercedes my previous post below (if it hasn't been deleted yet).

$expected=array(

'name',    //    Only accept these variables from a submit!
'email',
'favorite_color'

); foreach ($expected as $formvar)
$$formvar = (isset(${"_$_SERVER[REQUEST_METHOD]"}[$formvar]))?
   ${"_$_SERVER[REQUEST_METHOD]"}[$formvar]:NULL;
nospam at thenerdshow dot calm
09-Jul-2003 08:57
you can convert old code to work with register_globals=off without sacrificing security.  Or maybe you like working with variables the old way better.  I know I do!

I looked all over for something like this so here it is:

$expected=array(

'name',    //    Only accept these variables from a submit!
'email',
'favorite_color'

); for ($i=0;$i < count($expected);$i++)
   $$expected[$i] = (isset($_GET[$expected[$i]]))?$_GET[$expected[$i]]:NULL;

   // This is a test.
echo "Name: $name<br>";
echo "Email: $email<br>";
echo "Fav. Color: $favorite_color<br>";
cscotti@ifrance
09-Jul-2003 07:53
In reply to the second post:

This function construct an HTTP vars array

It is useful for javascript/dom incompatibility with form_input_item[] names for checkboxes, multiple selects, etc.

function multi_post_item() {
   $array_output = array();
   $raw_input_items = split("&", $_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]);
   foreach ($raw_input_items as $input_item) {
           // split this item into name/value pair
           $item = split("=", $input_item);
           // form item name
           $item_name = urldecode($item[0]);
           // form item value
           $item_value = urldecode($item[1]);
           if (!isset($array_output[$item_name]) ) {
               $array_output[$item_name] = $item_value; 
           }else if (!is_array($array_output[$item_name])){
                   $first = $item_value;
                   $array_output[$item_name] = array();
                   $array_output[$item_name][]= $first;
                   $array_output[$item_name][]= $item_value;
           }else{
                   $array_output[$item_name][]= $item_value;
           }
   }
   return $array_output;
}
mraymer at universal-solutions dot net
28-May-2003 08:37
A further thought about the checkbox without check mentioned above.  Rather than writing in a HIDDEN element.  Why not have your validation code check for the variable of the checkbox like so:

Assume HTML form has the following unchecked checkbox:

<INPUT TYPE='CHECKBOX' NAME="CATEGORY[]">Category Name</INPUT>

then your ACTION script in the form points to a script which has:

if (!isset($checkbox))
  {
  CATEGORY[] = "off";
  }

If you were dynamically creating the checkboxs, then, most likely, you would have your hands on the keys for each CATEGORY and you could create something like:

while (list($cat_id,$cat_title) = each($categories))
  {
   if (isset($category))
     {
   if (!$category[$cat_id])
     {
       $category[$cat_id] = "off";
     }
   else
     {
       $category[$cat_id] = "on";
     }
     }
   else
     {
   $category[$cat_id] = "off";
     }
  }

Assuming that you have an array named $categories constructed with unique keys and category titles.
un shift at yahoo dot com
02-Apr-2003 02:07
This function takes a recurring form item from php://input and loads it into an array - useful for javascript/dom incompatibility with form_input_item[] names for checkboxes, multiple selects, etc.  The fread maxes out at 100k on this one.  I guess a more portable option would be pulling in ini_get('post_max_size') and converting it to an integer.

function multi_post_item($input_item_name) {
     $array_output = array();
     $in_handle = fopen("php://input", "r");
     $raw_input_items = split("&", urldecode(fread($in_handle, 100000)));
     foreach ($raw_input_items as $input_item) {
           // split this item into name/value pair
           $item = split("=", $input_item);
           // form item name
           $item_name = $item[0];
           // form item value
           $item_value = $item[1];
           if ($item_name == $input_item_name) {
                   $array_output[] = $item_value;
           }
     }
     return $array_output;
}
vb at bertola dot eu dot org
20-Mar-2003 01:38
For what I understand, since PHP 4.3 it is possible to access the content of a POST request (or other methods as well) as an input stream named php://input, example:

readfile("php://input"); 
[to display it]

or

$fp = fopen("php://input", "r");   
[to open it and then do whatever you want]

This is very useful to access the content of POST requests which actually have a content (and not just variable-value couples, which appear in $_POST).

This substitutes the old $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA variable available in some of the previous 4.x versions. It is available for other upload methods different from POST too, but it is not available for POSTs with multipart/form-data content type, since the file upload handler has already taken care of the content in that case.
mail at paulodeon dot com
12-Mar-2003 09:42
If you have form data that could be coming in via either GET or POST and register_globals is off (as it should be) use the empty() function to find out where the data is coming from, as in the following example

if(empty($_GET)) {
       $clientfilter = $_POST['clientfilter'];
       $branchfilter = $_POST['branchfilter'];
}
if(empty($_POST)) {
   $clientfilter = $_GET['clientfilter'];
   $branchfilter = $_GET['branchfilter'];
}

Big thank you to all the people posting helpful comments on these boards, I dont know what i'd do without you. <a href="www.paulodeon.com">www.paulodeon.com</a>
04-Mar-2003 11:21
"...the dot (period, full stop) is not a valid character in a PHP variable name."

That's not completely correct, consider this example:
$GLOBALS['foo.bar'] = 'baz';
echo ${'foo.bar'};
This will output baz as expected.
keli at kmdsz dot ro
03-Feb-2003 11:37
image type inputs apparently return their "value" argument from Mozilla, but not from IEXplorer... :(

example:

 <input type="image" name="sb" value="first" src="first.jpg">

using a mozilla will give you
  $sb="first" AND $sb_x, $sb_y ... whereas from IE there's just no $sb. :(

[this in short form, as I'm still using trackvars :) ]
philip at cornado dot com
09-Oct-2002 01:58
One method to mimick register_globals being on at runtime is:

  if (!ini_get('register_globals')) {
   $types_to_register = array('GET','POST','COOKIE','SESSION','SERVER');
   foreach ($types_to_register as $type) {
     if (@count(${'HTTP_' . $type . '_VARS'}) > 0) {
       extract(${'HTTP_' . $type . '_VARS'}, EXTR_OVERWRITE);
     }
   }
  }
It's not recommended to do this, just rewrite your scripts instead, it's not hard.
steiner277 at charter dot net
10-Jul-2002 08:55
When accessing variables from a post, do NOT put $_POST['fieldname'] in double quotes or you will get an error message.

e.g. the following works fine:

$msg = "The message is:\t" . $_POST['message'] . "\n";

but the following will cause errors:

$msg = "The message is:\t$_POST['message']\n";
hjncom at hjncom dot net
25-May-2002 06:34
I think '[' and ']' are valid characters for name attributes.

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.4
-> InputType of 'name' attribute is 'CDATA'(not 'NAME' type)

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#h-6.2
-> about CDATA('name' attribute is not 'NAME' type!)
...CDATA is a sequence of characters from the document character set and may include character entities...

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/sgml/entities.html
--> about Character entity references in HTML 4
([ - &#91, ] - &#93)
jesper at codecrew dot dk
11-May-2002 10:12
Just to help others with the same stupid problem i have:

I you use a checkbox in your form, it will only return the value specified in value if it is checked.

ex. <input type="checkbox" value="yes">

in php code you then write

$checkboxchecked = ($checkbox == "yes");

I guess :)
a at b dot c dot de
03-Feb-2002 08:49
As far as whether or not "[]" in name attributes goes, The HTML4.01 specification only requires that it be a case-insensitive CDATA token, which can quite happily include "[]". Leading and trailing whitespace may be trimmed and shouldn't be used.

It is the id= attribute which is restricted, to a case-sensitive NAME token (not to be confused with a name= attribute).
carl_steinhilber at NOSPAMmentor dot com
31-Jan-2002 06:19
A group of identically-named checkbox form elements returning an array is a pretty standard feature of HTML forms. It would seem that, if the only way to get it to work is a non-HTML-standard-compliant workaround, it's a problem with PHP.

Since the array is passed in the header in a post, or the URL in a get, it's the PHP interpretation of those values that's failing.
yasuo_ohgaki at hotmail dot com
11-Mar-2001 08:02
Important:  Pay attention to the following security concerns when handling user submitted  data :

http://www.php.net/manual/en/security.registerglobals.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/security.variables.php