Drupal check boxes creation - php

Question

I have the form in drupal7.
What i need is: i have category and sub category . I have to list these in checkboxes like
I used the code as
$form['rate_the_room']['talent'] = array(
'#prefix'=>'<h1>category:</h1>',
'#type' => 'checkboxes',
'#options' => $sub_tal,
);
Here $sub_tal is an array. If it is the single dimensional array it works fine. Here how to pass an array(The category , sub categories are came from db). How to maintain this structure with this code.
Please help me thanks.

Answer 1

Is there any particular reason why these all need to be in one form element? If your data is set up properly, you can simply loop through them and create elements in a somewhat organized fashion.
function my_test_form($form_state) {
// Assuming you have your data in a format like this
$categories = array(
'cat1' => array(
'#title' => 'category 1',
'sub1' => 'Subcat1',
'sub2' => 'Subcat2',
),
'cat2' => array(
'#title' => 'category 2',
'sub21' => 'Subcat21',
'sub22' => 'Subcat22',
),
'cat3' => 'category 3',
);
$elements = array();
foreach ($categories as $cat => $data) {
// If multidimensional, create parent and loop through children
if (is_array($data)) {
$elements[] = array(
'#type' => 'checkbox',
'#title' => $data['#title'],
'#return_value' => $cat,
);
foreach (element_children($data) as $subcat) {
$elements[] = array(
'#type' => 'checkbox',
'#title' => $data[$subcat],
'#attributes' => array(
'style' => 'margin-left: 2em',
),
'#return_value' => $cat . '-' . $subcat,
);
}
}
// Else, just create top level
else {
$elements[] = array(
'#type' => 'checkbox',
'#title' => $data,
'#return_value' => $cat,
);
}
}
// Group all of these elements together. They'll be submitted into the same array.
$form['categories'] = $elements;
$form['categories']['#tree'] = TRUE;
$form['categories']['#prefix'] = '<div style="font-weight:bold" class="label">' . t('Checkboxes title') . ':</div>';
$form['submit'] = array(
'#value' => t('Submit me'),
'#type' => 'submit',
);
return $form;
}
function my_test_form_submit($form, &$form_state) {
$submitted_values = array_filter($form_state['values']['categories']);
}
Renders as:
And when the form is submitted, assuming some checkboxes were checked, $submitted_values looks like this:
array('cat2', 'cat2-sub21', 'cat2-sub22')
You can change the values of the checkboxes submitted to the submit handler by changing the #return_value attribute that I set on each checkbox above.
The submitted values are grouped together not only because they are all within the $form['categories'] section, but also because #tree is set to TRUE.