Trying to store form input to array - php

Question

I am trying to save form data to an array so I can display it in a table later. The problem I am having is that when I click the submit button and it reloads using php_self it seems to initialize the variables everytime. Here is an example of what I am trying to do.
<?php
// if first time initialize variables
if (!isset($i)) {
echo "in initialize section<br />";
$i = 0;
$itemno[] = "";
$desc[] = "";
}
if (isset($_POST['submitbtn'])) {
$itemno[$i] = $_POST['item'];
$desc[$i] = $_POST['desc'];
echo "Item# = " . $itemno[$i] . "<br />";
echo "Desc. = " . $desc[$i] . "<br />";
$i += 1;
echo "i = $i";
var_dump($itemno);
var_dump($desc);
}
?>
<form id="submititem" method="POST" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" name="submit" >
<input name="item" placeholder="Enter item #" size="18" />
<input name="desc" placeholder="Enter Description" size="18" />
<input name="submitbtn" type="submit" value=">">
</form>
Thanks
Ralph

Answer 1

The issue you're having is that PHP starts "fresh" with every page load. You'll need to store the data somewhere if you want to preserve your array over several submissions. Session or a database are two of the commonest ways of doing this.
Here's how you might do it with session:
<?php
session_start();
$items = isset($_SESSION['items']) ? $_SESSION['items'] : array();
$descriptions = isset($_SESSION['descriptions']) ? $_SESSION['descriptions'] : array();
// your logic here...
$_SESSION['items'] = $items;
$_SESSION['descriptions'] = $descriptions;
Note that if your array is likely to get very big or if you have very many users, you'll probably want to use a database to store the item/description information.

Answer 2

You have to deal with session
$_SESSION['itemno'][$_SESSION['i']] = $_POST['item'];