如何以编程方式检索任意数量的类似命名的post变量

Question

Before getting to my registration page, my users specify te number (X) of group members to be registered. Upon arriving on that page, X registration forms are generated, one for each member. So I have a first_name1 text field for the first person, then first_name2, first_name3, etc. In total, X first_name fields each with a number at the end of it.

Problem is when retrieving those variables. There can be 20 people, so in my code I won't do:

$_POST['first_name1'] 
$_POST['first_name2'] 
...
$_POST['first_name20'] 

Instead, I'd like to do something like:

$_POST['first_name.$number'] 

Is it possible in PHP?

Answer 1

You can use arrays in your form element names like this:

<input name="first_name[]" type="text" />
<input name="first_name[]" type="text" />
<input name="first_name[]" type="text" />

In your php you can then access it by iterating over the array:

foreach($_POST['first_name'] as $index => $first_name) {
  // Do something with $first_name
}

---

Note: you can create very complex structures using this method, this isn't just limited to the simple example above. You can even create a multidimensional array, for example:

<input name="user[0][first_name]" type="text" />
<input name="user[0][last_name]" type="text" />