Unable to assign POST data from multiple check boxes - php

Question

I am a newbie to PHP and MySQL, so please ignore my bad practice of coding :)
Ok, here's the scenario:
I have a page, checkin.php which has two forms;
Form 1: Takes some input and displays data from database along with multiple checkboxes.
Form 2: It is dynamically generated if any data is found above.
Here's the code:
//Echoing out the query results
echo "<form method='POST' action='checkin.php'>";
echo "<tbody>";
foreach ($checkin_status as $row) {
echo "$rowStart";
echo "$row[book_id]";
echo "$insertColumn";
echo "$row[branch_id]";
echo "$insertColumn";
echo "$row[card_no]";
echo "$insertColumn";
echo "$row[fname]" . " " . "$row[lname]";
echo "$insertColumn";
echo "$row[date_out]";
echo "$insertColumn";
echo "$row[due_date]";
echo "$insertColumn";
//Checkbox creation
$checkin_recall_value = "$row[book_id]" . " " . "$row[branch_id]" . " " . "$row[card_no]";
echo "<div style='text-align: center;'><input type='checkbox' name='checkin' value='$checkin_recall_value'></div>";
echo "$rowEnd";
}
echo "</tbody>";
//Checkin button in foot
echo "<tfoot>";
echo "<td colspan='7' style='text-align: center; padding-right: 20px;'><input id='checkin_button' type='submit' value='Check In' title='Click to check in!'></td>";
echo "</tfoot>";
echo "</form>";
The form is generated with checkboxes along side the returned tuples.
Now when I am selecting some checkboxes and trying to display, it WONT...
Here is the code:
if(!empty($_POST['checkin'])) {
//Retrieving the recall variables as an array from POST and assigning to $main_array
$main_array = array();
//echo "I am here";
if(is_array($_POST['checkin'])) {
foreach($_POST['checkin'] as $value)
{
$sub_array = explode(" ", $value);
array_push($main_array, $sub_array);
}
}
print_r($main_array);
}
Its returning an empty array...
Please help me fix this.

Answer 1

IF you want to have multiple html elements with the same name, you must define it as an array, adding []:
<input type='checkbox' name='checkin[]' value='$checkin_recall_value'>