Question

I’m dabbling in JQuery, and have run up against an issue I’m not quite able yet to figure out. Here is the context:

I have a HTML form, utilising MySQL & PHP, used to edit a CMS post. This post would have a list of attachments (eg. images for a gallery, or downloadable files). Using JQuery, the user can click on these list item elements and edit the details of each attachment in a revealed div (eg. delete image, add capton, etc).

Currently when the user opts to delete an attachment, I simply fade its opacity and provide a new option to the user to ‘undo’ the delete. Upon submission of the complete parent form (the CMS post), I want to gather all the attachments still marked for deletion, and submit their GUID’s to the PHP script that is doing all the rest of the post updating for me.

Option A:

Is it possible to submit a JQuery array to a PHP script alongside the data being sent naturally to the action script by the form inputs?

Option B:

Is it possible to fill / empty a (hidden) form input array dynamically with JQuery, which could then be submitted naturally to the action script with everything else?

I am currently at the stage where I am filling a Javascript array with the necessary GUIDs, but now don’t know what to do with it.

//populate deleted attachments array
$(document).ready(function() {
  $('#post-editor').submit(function() {
    var arrDeleted = [];    
    $('.deleted-att').each(function(){
      arrDeleted.push({guid: $(this).attr("data-guid")});
    });
    //do something with array
  });
});

Answer 1

JSON.stringify the arrDeleted and put them in a hidden field in the form, that will be submitted.

$('#post-editor').submit(function() {
    var arrDeleted = [];    
    $('.deleted-att').each(function(){
        arrDeleted.push({guid: $(this).attr("data-guid")});
    });
    $('#post-hidden').val(JSON.stringify(arrDeleted));
});

Somewhere in your html:

<form id="post-editor">
    <input type="hidden" id="post-hidden" name="post-hidden" />
    <!-- ... other fields ... -->
 </form>

Then json_decode($_POST['post-hidden']) on the server to get the array.