Question

I am using AJAX to put some data in my database. I am using JSON to submit the data to a PHP page. I am using a POST request. Can you set one of the POST variables as an array? Below I have the full AJAX request, but here is the part where I am setting two parts of the data as arrays:

"content[]" : testContentArray,
"content_attr[]" : testContentAttributes,

Below is my full AJAX (using jQuery):

$.ajax({
                type: "POST",
                url: "../includes/create_test_main.ajax.php",
                data:   {"tags" : $('#testTags').val(),
                                         "title" : $('#testTitle').val(),
                                         "subject" : $('#testSubject').val(),
                                         "description" : $('#testDescription').val(),
                                         "content[]" : testContentArray,
                                         "content_attr[]" : testContentAttributes,
                                         "user_id" : user_id},
                success: 

                                     function(testId) {//redirect Page
                                        window.location.href = "http://localhost/nvr_forget/public_html/test/" + testId + "/";
                                     }
            });
        };

If that is the way to do it, how would I handle it on the PHP side? do I handle the $_POST variable as a normal array?

Answer 1

When you pass an array within a data object to $.ajax, it is parsed out into name[]=value format. This is done using $.param, so I’ll illustrate using that:

jQuery.param({'foo': [1, 2, 5]})
// "foo%5B%5D=1&foo%5B%5D=2&foo%5B%5D=5"

%5B and %5D are uri-encoded square brackets. This is a common way of sending multiple values for the same key to a server. PHP parses it into an array, so in this case:

var_export($_POST['foo']);
// array ('1', '2', '5')

So in your code, $_POST['content'] and $_POST['content_attr'] should both be arrays. The square brackets that you’ve used are unnecessary, but won’t break anything.

See the PHP manual on the subject.