Question

I have a complicated array (at least it looks complicated to me). I have a form where you select a person, a start time and an end time. You can then add more people by clicking a + button. So I named the three select fields like “select_dancer[]” for an array.

When I print_r my results, it looks like this:

Array
(
    [month_year] => 2011-11
    [select_dancer] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1
            [1] => 2
        )

    [time_from] => Array
        (
            [0] => 12:00pm
            [1] => 1:00pm
        )

    [time_to] => Array
        (
            [0] => 12:30pm
            [1] => 1:30pm
        )
)

Basically, the key 0 is one person, and key 1 is another. Etc. I’m having trouble getting my head around adding this to the database. My table is basically: id, date, dancer, from, to. So I want it so I can “group” each key together and submit the values to the database.

If anyone could help me out, that would be great.

Answer 1

An easier approach to the field grouping would be something like this in your HTML

<input name="dancer[0][id]" ...
<input name="dancer[0][time_from]" ...
<input name="dancer[0][time_to]" ...

As each group is added, increment the number in the first square-brackets.

Your resulting $_POST array would then look like

Array
(
    [month_year] => 2011-11
    [dancer] => Array
    (
        [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 1,
            [time_from] => 12:00pm
            [time_to] => 12.30pm
        )
        [1] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [time_from] => 1:00pm
            [time_to] => 1:30pm
        )
    )
)

You can then iterate the $_POST['dancer'] array for each group of values, eg (very simplified)

foreach ($_POST['dancer'] as $dancer) {
    if (!isset($dancer['id'], $dancer['time_from'], $dancer['time_to'])) {
        throw new Exception('All fields are required');
    }

    $id       = $dancer['id'];
    $timeFrom = $dancer['time_from'];
    $timeTo   = $dancer['time_to'];
}