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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T08:02:53+00:00

Say there are form inputs posted with array-style names: <input type=text name=user[name] value=John />

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Say there are form inputs posted with array-style names:

<input type="text" name="user[name]" value="John" />
<input type="text" name="user[email]" value="foo@example.org" />
<input type="checkbox" name="user[prefs][]" value="1" checked="checked" />
<input type="checkbox" name="user[prefs][]" value="2" checked="checked" />
<input type="text" name="other[example][var]" value="foo" />

Then $_POST would come back like this, print_r()‘d:

Array
(
    [user] => Array
        (
            [name] => John
            [email] => foo@example.org
            [prefs] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 1
                    [1] => 2
                )

        )

    [other] => Array
        (
            [example] => Array
                (
                    [var] => foo
                )

        )

)

The goal is to be able call a function, like this:

$form_values = form_values($_POST);

That would return an associative array with keys similar to the style of the original input names:

Array
(
    [user[name]] => John
    [user[email]] => foo@example.org
    [user[prefs][]] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1
            [1] => 2
        )

    [other[example][var]] => foo
)

This has been very challenging, and at this point my “wheels are spinning in the mud.” :-[

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’m not sure why you need to do this but if that following code can give you a hint :

    $testArray = array ( 'user' => array ( 'name' => 'John', 'email' => 'test@example.org', 'prefs' => array ( 0 => '1', ), ), 'other' => array ( 'example' => array ( 'var' => 'foo', ), ), );

function toPlain($in,$track=null)
{
    $ret = array();
    foreach ($in as $k => $v) {
        $encappedKey = $track ? "[$k]" : $k; /* If it's a root */

        if (is_array($v)) {
            $ret = array_merge($ret,toPlain($v,$track.$encappedKey));
        } else {
            $ret = array_merge($ret,array($track.$encappedKey => $v));
        }
    }
    return $ret;
}
print_r(toPlain($testArray));

    http://codepad.org/UAo9qNwo

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