If you're submitting the form data with jQuery's Ajax functionality, there should not be a problem with using .serialize()
. The server should see and urldecode automatically the POST content.
As a demonstration, see this code:
HTML
<form id="category-dynamic" class="dynamic">
<fieldset id="inner-fieldset">
<legend id="new-category">
<label for="category-name">Category Name: </label>
<input type="text" name="category-name" value="" />
</legend>
<ul id="category-fields">
<li>
<label>Field #1:</label><br />
<input type="text" name="fields[]" value="" />
</li>
<li>
<label>Field #2:</label><br />
<input type="text" name="fields[]" value="" />
</li>
</ul>
</fieldset>
</form>
<h3>POST Result</h3>
<pre></pre>
jQuery
$(document).ready(function(){
$('pre').html($('#category-dynamic').serialize());
$.post("http://jfcoder.com/test/processor.php", $('#category-dynamic').serialize(), function(data){
$('pre').html($('pre').html()+"
"+data);
});
});
EDIT
And the processor.php file contents:
<?php
print_r($_POST);
?>
EDIT 2
I think your error is that you're sending the content in such a way as to make the form data be a text string instead of url-encoded content.
For instance, you could do this:
var formSubmit = $(this).serialize() + "&formSubmit=true";
$.post('ajax.php', formSubmit);
And you'd have the same effect, and the server would be able to expand your POST variables without incident.
EDIT 3
See this example:
Where the code is:
$(document).ready(function(){
var serial = $('#category-dynamic').serialize() + "&formSubmit=true";
$('pre').html(serial);
$.post("http://jfcoder.com/test/processor.php", serial, function(data){
$('pre').html($('pre').html()+"
"+data);
});
});
Note the addition of the "&formSubmit=true"
to the serial data. This outputs from the PHP page:
POST Result
category-name=&fields%5B%5D=&fields%5B%5D=&formSubmit=true
Array
(
[category-name] =>
[fields] => Array
(
[0] =>
[1] =>
)
[formSubmit] => true
)
EDIT 4
This uses the method you describe. See the difference?
$(document).ready(function(){
var serial = $('#category-dynamic').serialize();
$('pre').html(serial);
$.post("http://jfcoder.com/test/processor.php", {"formSubmit":"true","serial":serial}, function(data){
$('pre').html($('pre').html()+"
"+data);
});
});
OUTPUT
POST Result
category-name=&fields%5B%5D=&fields%5B%5D=
Array
(
[formSubmit] => true
[serial] => category-name=&fields%5B%5D=&fields%5B%5D=
)