Question

I’ve been using Serialize() to pass checkbox form data with Post() for a basket that can hold multiple items of the same category.

When I post them using the submit button it works fine with multiple values being passed and displayed under one category.

However when I used Jquery serialize() it will only show one item per category and only two categories in total. This is an array issue but I cannot work it out.

Is there an alternative JQuery function i should be using to pass a multi-dimensional array?

Answer 1

Jquery will take multi dimensional arrays directly, no need to serialize.

var data = {
  foo:  123,
  bar:  456,
  rows: [
    {
      column1 : 'hello',
      column2 : 'hola',
      column3 : 'bonjour',
    },
    {
      column1 : 'goodbye',
      column2 : 'hasta luego',
      column3 : 'au revoir',
    },
  ],
  test1:{
    test2: {
      test3:  'baz'
    }
  }
};

_Post Data in your PHP file would look like this

Array
   (
    [foo] => 123
    [bar] => 456
    [rows] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [column1] => hello
                    [column2] => hola
                    [column3] => bonjour
                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [column1] => goodbye
                    [column2] => hasta luego
                    [column3] => au revoir
                )

        )

    [test1] => Array
        (
            [test2] => Array
                (
                    [test3] => baz
                )

        )

    )

Once you define your data multidimensional array, your Ajax could be as simple as

$.ajax({
          type:           'post',
          cache:          false,
          url:            './ajax.php',
          data:           data
      });

If your post array may have fields that you don’t know about, you can access your Post array in your php file easily with

$data = file_get_contents('php://input');
$data = json_decode($data, true);