Question

I have an odd issue. I have one PHP script that is used for multiple forms. It takes in all the requests and then puts the data in the appropriate table in a database. As it stands, it looks like this:

    $fields = "";
$values = "";

foreach ($_REQUEST as $key=>$value)
{


        $key = str_replace(":","",$key);
        $fields .= "$key,";
        $values .= "'$value ',";
}


//remove the ending comma from $fields and $values
$fields = substr($fields, 0, -1);
$values = substr($values, 0, -1);

$sql = "INSERT INTO " . $survey . " ($fields) VALUES ($values)";
mysql_query($sql)
    or die(mysql_error());

And this works well. The problem is, there are some forms with checkboxes (i.e. a person can select more than one option). If I were to use a get method, the query string would look like:

http://www.somesite.php?V9=1&V9=2&V9=4

With the current script, only 4 is taken, since it was the last value.

Now, I know a reason this is happening is because of the way the name of the checkbox is defined in the form. It says name=”V9″ instead of name=”V9[]” However, I cannot change the forms. They are generated by software, and the idea is that any user can create an HTML form, point it to the script and their information will be recorded in a table. So, changing the HTML is not an option for me.

So, I need a way to detect whether a key has been submitted, and if so, append the value. I tried this:

    $fields = "";
$values = "";

foreach ($_REQUEST as $key=>$value)
{

        //check to see if the key has already been used for multi-choice questions
        $key_check = strpos($fields, "$key,");

        if($key_check !== false){
            $values = substr($values, 0, -2);
            $values .= "\;$value ',";
        }else{
            $key = str_replace(":","",$key);
            $fields .= "$key,";
            $values .= "'$value ',";
        }
}


//remove the ending comma from $fields and $values
$fields = substr($fields, 0, -1);
$values = substr($values, 0, -1);

$sql = "INSERT INTO " . $survey . " ($fields) VALUES ($values)";
mysql_query($sql)
    or die(mysql_error());

But I get the same results. $key_check never seems to be valid. Any help would be appreciated. Someone here has a working ASP version that does a similar thing, but it emails the data, rather than saving it in a DB.

Answer 1

You could try this if you are using $_GET:

function convertInput($qs=""){
  $rtn = "";
  $holdingArray = array();
  if(trim($qs)!=""){
    $vars = explode("&", $qs);
    foreach($vars as $val){
      $kv = explode("=", $val);
      if(count($kv)==2){
        if(isset($holdingArray[$kv[0]])){
          $holdingArray[$kv[0]] .= "," . $kv[1];
        }else{
          $holdingArray[$kv[0]] = $kv[1];
        }
      }
    }
    $rtn = $holdingArray;
  }
  return $rtn;
}
print_r(convertInput($_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]));