Question

I have this $_POST array coming from a paypal transaction

Array
(
    [address_city] => San Jose
    [address_country] => United States
    [address_country_code] => US
    [address_name] => Test User
    [address_state] => CA
    [address_status] => confirmed
    [address_street] => 1 Main St
    [address_zip] => 95131
    [business] => [e-mail]
    [charset] => windows-1252
    [custom] => 
    [first_name] => Test
    [item_name1] => Product Name 1
    [item_name2] => Product Name 6
    [item_name3] => Product Name 8
    [item_number1] => 1
    [item_number2] => 6
    [item_number3] => 8
    [last_name] => User
    [mc_currency] => USD
    [mc_fee] => 0.82
    [mc_gross] => 18.00
    [mc_gross_1] => 14.00
    [mc_gross_2] => 2.00
    [mc_gross_3] => 2.00
    [mc_handling] => 0.00
    [mc_handling1] => 0.00
    [mc_handling2] => 0.00
    [mc_handling3] => 0.00
    [mc_shipping] => 11.00
    [mc_shipping1] => 11.00
    [mc_shipping2] => 0.00
    [mc_shipping3] => 0.00
    [notify_version] => 3.4
    [num_cart_items] => 3
    [payer_email] => [e-mail]
    [payer_id] => TRCLJTHLNCJ7Q
    [payer_status] => verified
    [payment_date] => 22:52:56 Jan 27, 2012 PST
    [payment_fee] => 0.82
    [payment_gross] => 18.00
    [payment_status] => Completed
    [payment_type] => instant
    [protection_eligibility] => Eligible
    [quantity1] => 1
    [quantity2] => 1
    [quantity3] => 1
    [receiver_email] => [e-mail]
    [receiver_id] => 74PV23B8KSK84
    [residence_country] => US
    [tax] => 0.00
    [tax1] => 0.00
    [tax2] => 0.00
    [tax3] => 0.00
    [test_ipn] => 1
    [transaction_subject] => Shopping CartProduct Name 1Product Name 6Product Name 8
    [txn_id] => 7BS85664SB906284D
    [txn_type] => cart
    [verify_sign] => AJ2IuqHp8G0lIxhedAqrwRQbv8fVA4-Gum9e7DMZmEWIFrljEwFCJDfP
)
1

as you can see, there are key value pairs like this,

[items_name1] => Product Name 1
[items_name2] => Product Name 2
[items_name3] => Product Name 3

those keys aren’t constant, I mean, it came from a shopping cart, so the item name depends on how many items were placed in the shopping cart to be purchased.. now my question is,
How to loop to that post array, and get only the item_names plus their corresponding values ?, because I need them and save in a db table

Answer 1

Loop over each element of the array and check if the key starts with "items_name" using strpos^docs. If so, add it to the $items array.

$items = array();
foreach ($_POST as $key => $val)
{
  if (strpos($key, 'items_name') === 0) {
    $items[$key] = $val;
  }
}
var_dump($items);