Print $_POST variable name along with value - php

Question

I have a POST in PHP for which I won't always know the names of the variable fields I will be processing.
I have a function that will loop through the values (however I would also like to capture the variable name that goes with it.)
foreach ($_POST as $entry)
{
print $entry . "<br>";
}
Once I figure out how to grab the variable names, I also need to figure out how I can make the function smart enough to detect and loop through arrays for a variable if they are present (i.e. if I have some checkbox values.)

Answer 1

If you just want to print the entire $_POST array to verify your data is being sent correctly, use print_r:
print_r($_POST);
To recursively print the contents of an array:
printArray($_POST);
function printArray($array){
foreach ($array as $key => $value){
echo "$key => $value";
if(is_array($value)){ //If $value is an array, print it as well!
printArray($value);
}
}
}
Apply some padding to nested arrays:
printArray($_POST);
/*
* $pad='' gives $pad a default value, meaning we don't have
* to pass printArray a value for it if we don't want to if we're
* happy with the given default value (no padding)
*/
function printArray($array, $pad=''){
foreach ($array as $key => $value){
echo $pad . "$key => $value";
if(is_array($value)){
printArray($value, $pad.' ');
}
}
}
is_array returns true if the given variable is an array.
You can also use array_keys which will return all the string names.

Answer 2

You can have the foreach loop show the index along with the value:
foreach ($_POST as $key => $entry)
{
print $key . ": " . $entry . "<br>";
}
As to the array checking, use the is_array() function:
foreach ($_POST as $key => $entry)
{
if (is_array($entry)) {
foreach($entry as $value) {
print $key . ": " . $value . "<br>";
}
} else {
print $key . ": " . $entry . "<br>";
}
}

Answer 3

It's much better to use:
if (${'_'.$_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']}) {
$kv = array();
foreach (${'_'.$_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']} as $key => $value) {
$kv[] = "$key=$value";
}
}

Answer 4

If you want to detect array fields use a code like this:
foreach ($_POST as $key => $entry)
{
if (is_array($entry)){
print $key . ": " . implode(',',$entry) . "<br>";
}
else {
print $key . ": " . $entry . "<br>";
}
}