How handle multiple inputs from one form in PHP - php

Question

I'm not sure how to ask this question. It procedural question I believe.
<input type="hidden" name="1[]" value="dummy">
<input type="radio" name="1[]" value="5">
<label> Very Good </label>
<input type="radio" name="1[]" value="4">
<label> Good </label>
<input type="text" name="1[]" size="20">
<br>
<input type="hidden" name="2[]" value="dummy">
<input type="radio" name="2[]" value="5">
<label> Very Good </label>
<input type="radio" name="2[]" value="4">
<label> Good </label>
<input type="text" name="2[]" size="20">
$_POST output:
[1] => Array
(
[0] => Text misc
)
[2] => Array
(
[0] => 5
[1] =>
)
From this I construct and INSERT statement.
INSERT INTO coached_tracked (coached_id, value, note)
VALUES ($key, $value[0], $value[1]);
This is are dynamically generated form inputs. A radio button, text field pair.
How can I handle an occurrence where the radio is not selected and the text field has value, like in the first instance. I want the option of having nothing selected so a default value seems not called for. I tried with both with and without a dummy value (I saw an example suggesting a hidden field as a possible solution.)
Suggestions.

Answer 1

You should not tell the database what ID to use. Let the database itself determine that by using an auto-incremented column.
First, start with a logical input name. Using just numbers is extremely confusing and looking at your code, I have absolutely no idea what you're doing. We also want everything to go into the same PHP $_POST variable to not have to iterate over all possible number cominations. That means we can just iterate over the one single array.
Let's say you're adding a coach to a database, so logically we would start with:
<input name="coach">
Now when we want to add multiple coaches instead of just one, we can use HTML array names, however I would recommend you hard-code them instead of auto-incrementing in your HTML, which should simplify things later on. We also pluralize it to coaches:
<?php
for ($i=0;$i<10;$i++) {
?>
<input name="coaches[<?=$i?>]">
<?php
}
Now if each coach contains a certain properties, let's say name, salary, note, etc, we can add the properties to the input names like so:
<?php
for ($i=0;$i<10;$i++) {
?>
<input name="coaches[<?=$i?>][name]">
<input name="coaches[<?=$i?>][salary]">
<input name="coaches[<?=$i?>][note]">
<?php
}
Then in PHP you just iterate over $_POST['coaches'] and then use the properties for each coach how you wish:
if (isset($_POST['coaches'])) {
foreach ($_POST['coaches'] as $coach) {
$name = $coach['name'];
$salary = $coach['salary'];
$note = $coach['note'];
// Now execute the query:
// INSERT INTO coached_tracked (name, salary, note)
// VALUES ($name, $salary, $note);
}
}
Note: remember to sanitize any user-supplied data by using prepared statements with bound parameters to make sure you're not open to SQL injection attacks.