Looping over an array of inputs with the same name - php

Question

I'm making a todo list and I've got everything working except for this one thing. I need to loop over inputs that's been submitted via a form, these inputs have the same name so what I've done is storing them as an array. Now I need to loop over them so I can send them into the database one by one. Here's what I tried:
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
$labelValues = $_POST['labelValue[]'];
$i = 0;
while($i < sizeof($labelValues)) {
$stmt = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO tenta_table (text) VALUES (:text)");
$stmt->bindParam(':text', $labelValues[$i]);
$stmt->execute();
$i++;
}
}
HTML, the inputs are marked with red:
But it doesn't seem to work, it's not giving me any errors so I have nothing to go on. Where am I going wrong here?

Answer 1

Your $_POST['labelValue'] will already be an array if you have named your inputs correctly, something like <input type="text" name="labelValue[]" /> would create and array called labelValue in your POST.
From there you should be able to use your current code with one minor change
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
$labelValues = $_POST['labelValue'];
$i = 0;
while($i < sizeof($labelValues)) {
$stmt = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO tenta_table (text) VALUES (:text)");
$stmt->bindParam(':text', $labelValues[$i]);
$stmt->execute();
$i++;
}
}
Above I have change $labelValues to equal $_POST['lableValue'] rather than $_POST['labelValue[]']

Answer 2

In your case only the last input element will be available.
If you want multiple inputs with the same name use name="foo[]" for the input name attribute. $_POST will then contain an array for foo with all values from the input elements.
<form method="post">
<input name="a[]" value="foo"/>
<input name="a[]" value="bar"/>
<input name="a[]" value="baz"/>
<input type="submit" />
</form>
The reason why $_POST will only contain the last value if you don't use [] is because PHP will basically just explode and foreach over the raw query string to populate $_POST. When it encounters a name/value pair that already exists, it will overwrite the previous one.
However, you can still access the raw query string like this:
$rawQueryString = file_get_contents('php://input'))
Assuming you have a form like this:
<form method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="a" value="foo"/>
<input type="hidden" name="a" value="bar"/>
<input type="hidden" name="a" value="baz"/>
<input type="submit" />
</form>
the $rawQueryString will then contain a=foo&a=bar&a=baz.
You can then use your own logic to parse this into an array. A naive approach would be
$post = array();
foreach (explode('&', file_get_contents('php://input')) as $keyValuePair) {
list($key, $value) = explode('=', $keyValuePair);
$post[$key][] = $value;
}
which would then give you an array of arrays for each name in the query string.
or the best and simple approach for this
<form method="post">
<input name="a[0]" value="foo"/>
<input name="a[1]" value="bar"/>
<input name="a[2]" value="baz"/>
<input type="submit" />
</form>

Answer 3

You should replace
$labelValues = $_POST['labelValue[]'];
By
$labelValues = $_POST['labelValue'];

Answer 4

Not Sure, but as far as i remember it should be $labelValues = $_POST['labelValue']. I think your $labelValues is null and you don't even enter your loop. You should do a var_dump( $_POST ) to verify what you're working with.