Laravel 5.4 multiple (dynamic) form & square brackets - php

Question

I use Laravel 5.4 and Laravel Collective's Form & HTML Builder (https://laravelcollective.com/docs/5.4/html).
I have a dynamic form, like this:
https://codepen.io/matedon/pen/BZQymW
There are more input fields with the same name but with square bracket:
<input name="apartments[][price]">
<input name="apartments[][rooms]">
<input name="apartments[][price]">
<input name="apartments[][rooms]">
With the Laravel Collective's Form & HTML Builder the output and the old() value should be that:
{
"apartments": [
{
"price": "23000",
"rooms": "12"
},
{
"price": "42000",
"rooms": "32"
}
]
}
But there is an issue and I got this:
#php(dump(Form::old('apartments')))
array:1 [▼
"price" => "23000"
]
I also tried Laravel's "native" solution which is wrong too:
#php(dump(session()->getOldInput('apartments')))
array:4 [▼
0 => array:1 [▼
"price" => "23000"
]
1 => array:1 [▼
"rooms" => "12"
]
2 => array:1 [▼
"price" => "42000"
]
3 => array:1 [▼
"rooms" => "32"
]
]
What is the solution could be?
Thank you!

Answer 1

You are just missing in the construction of the inputs, in case you want something like this:
"apartments" => array:2 [
"price" => array:2 [
0 => "52.5"
1 => "65"
]
"rooms" => array:2 [
0 => "3"
1 => "4"
]
]
Your inputs should look like:
<input name="apartments[price][]">
<input name="apartments[rooms][]">
<input name="apartments[price][]">
<input name="apartments[rooms][]">
If you need them to be separated by apartment you need to add some type of index (since it is a dynamic form you may need to keep the current index stored somewhere in your application):
"apartments" => array:2 [
1 => array:2 [
"price" => "52.5"
"rooms" => "3"
]
2 => array:2 [
"price" => "65"
"rooms" => "4"
]
]
Your inputs:
<input name="apartments[1][price]">
<input name="apartments[1][rooms]">
<input name="apartments[2][price]">
<input name="apartments[2][rooms]">
Note that this is not the framework fault, it is more a form structure issue. If you need more information about how to build form datasets I'd recommend you to check W3C HTML5 Forms section.
Hope this helps you.