Question

I have a form that has a popup page with another form. In that popup form I want to take all fields filled out and store it in a single field in the main parent form via a hidden field. So that when the parent form gets submitted I can get all the fields via the hidden fields via php. How could I do that with jquery? Can I take all the fields from the popup form and store it as a json string in the hidden field? Then in php be able to turn that jquery string into an object so I can get easy access to all the form values? If so then how would I take all the fields from the popup form and turn it into a json string? Or is there a better/easier way?

Answer 1

To capture the form into an input for posting:

You want to .serialize() the form.

$('input').val( $('form').serialize() );

Then, in PHP, you just do a parse_str() to split it back up into an array.

Also, keep in mind that there may be a better solution than passing field data around like this, but if you’re hellbent on that implementation, this is probably the way to go.

To open a form as a modal, then collect the data in PHP:

// You can set this to not open by default and bind the opening to a button, or a link, etc...
$('form').dialog({
    modal: true
});

In PHP, your form will be contained within $_POST as normal.

print_r( $_POST );