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PHP und HTML

PHP und HTML interagieren stark: PHP kann HTML generieren und HTML kann Informationen an PHP weitergeben. Bevor Sie diese FAQ lesen, sollten Sie verstanden haben, wie Sie auf Variablen aus externen Quellen zugreifen können. Die Manual-Seite zu diesem Thema enthält viele Beispiele, die das Verständnis erleichtern. Besonders wichtig ist weiterhin zu wissen, was die register_globals-Einstellung für Sie bedeutet.

Wie muss ich kodieren/dekodieren, wenn ich einen Wert über ein Formular/einen URL weitergeben möchte?

Es gibt mehrere Stufen, für die Encoding wichtig ist. Angenommen, Sie haben einen String $data, der den String, den Sie in nicht-kodierter Weise weitergeben möchten, enthält. Dann sind dies die relevanten Stufen:

  • HTML-Interpretation: Wenn Sie einen zufälligen String angeben wollen, müssen Sie ihn in die doppelte Anführungszeichen einschließen und htmlspecialchars() auf den gesamten Wert anwenden.

  • URL: Ein URL besteht aus mehreren Teilen. Wenn Sie wollen, dass Ihre Daten als ein Element interpretiert werden, dann müssen Sie Ihre Daten mit urlencode() kodieren.

Beispiel #1 Ein verstecktes HTML-Formularelement

<?php
    
echo "<input type='hidden' value='" htmlspecialchars($data) . "' />\n";
?>

Hinweis: Es wäre falsch, urlencode() auf $data anzuwenden, da es die Aufgabe des Browsers ist, die Daten zu kodieren. Alle populären Browser machen dies auch korrekt. Beachten Sie, dass dies unabhängig von der verwendeten Methode (also z.B. GET oder POST) geschieht. Feststellen werden Sie dies aber nur bei GET-Anfragen, da POST-Anfragen meist versteckt geschehen.

Beispiel #2 Daten, die vom Benutzer bearbeitet werden sollen

<?php
    
echo "<textarea name='mydata'>\n";
    echo 
htmlspecialchars($data)."\n";
    echo 
"</textarea>";
?>

Hinweis: Die Daten werden wie Browser wie gewünscht ausgegeben, da der Browser die HTML-escapten Symbole interpretiert. Nach dem Abschicken, egal ob via GET oder POST, werden die Daten für den Transfer kodiert (mit urlencode()) und von PHP direkt wieder dekodiert (mit urldecode()). Sie müssen also für die Kodierung und Dekodierung nicht selbst sorgen, die Browser und PHP erledigen dies automatisch für Sie.

Beispiel #3 In einem URL

<?php
    
echo "<a href='" htmlspecialchars("/nextpage.php?stage=23&data=" .
        
urlencode($data)) . "'>\n";
?>

Hinweis: Hier wird eine HTML-GET-Anfrage gefakt, deswegen müssen Sie die Daten manuell mit urlencode() kodieren.

Hinweis: Sie müssen htmlspecialchars() auf den gesamten URL anwenden, da der URL als Wert eines HTML-Attributs auftritt. In diesem Fall wird der Browser zuerst etwas wie "un-htmlspecialchars()" auf den Wert anwenden und dann erst den URL weitergeben. PHP wird den URL korrekt verstehen, da Sie die Daten mit urlencode() kodiert haben. Sie werden feststellen, dass das & im URL durch &amp; ersetzt wird. Auch wenn die meisten Browser richtig arbeiten, falls Sie diese Ersetzung vergessen sollten, sollten Sie sich trotzdem nicht darauf verlassen. Das bedeutet, dass Sie - auch wenn Ihr URL nicht dynamisch ist - trotzdem htmlspecialchars() auf den URL anwenden müssen.

Ich versuche ein <input type="image">-Tag zu benutzen, aber die Variablen $foo.x and $foo.y sind nicht verfügbar. Auch $_GET['foo.x'] existiert nicht. Wo finde ich diese?

Wenn ein Formular abgeschickt werden soll, ist es möglich, ein Bild statt des Standard-Submit-Buttons zu verwenden, indem Sie ein Tag wie das folgende verwenden:

<input type="image" src="image.gif" name="foo" />
Wenn der Benutzer irgendwo auf das Bild klickt, wird das zugehörige Formular zusammen mit zwei zusätzlichen Variablen übertragen: foo.x und foo.y.

Da foo.x und foo.y in PHP ungültige Variablennamen erzeugen würden, werden Sie automatisch in $foo_x und $foo_y konvertiert. Die Punkte werden also durch Unterstriche ersetzt. Sie können auf diese Variablen also genauso wie im Abschnitt Variablen aus externen Quellen zugreifen, z.B. $_GET['foo_x'].

Hinweis:

Leerzeichen in Namen von Formularelementen werden in Unterstriche konvertiert.

Wie kann ich Array aus einem HTML-Formular erstellen?

Um die Formularwerte als Array im PHP-Skript zur Verfügung zu haben, müssen Sie die <input>, <select> or <textarea>-Felder wie folgt benennen:

<input name="MeinArray[]" />
<input name="MeinArray[]" />
<input name="MeinArray[]" />
<input name="MeinArray[]" />
Beachten Sie die eckigen Klammern hinter dem Variablen-Namen, denn dadurch wird das Array erst erzeugt. Sie können Felder in verschiedenen Arrays gruppieren, wenn Sie verschiedenen Feldern die gleichen Namen geben:
<input name="MeinArray[]" />
<input name="MeinArray[]" />
<input name="MeinAnderesArray[]" />
<input name="MeinAnderesArray[]" />
Daraus werden zwei Arrays, MeinArray und MeinAnderesArray erstellt. Es ist auch möglich, spezielle Schlüssel anzugeben:
<input name="AnderesArray[]" />
<input name="AnderesArray[]" />
<input name="AnderesArray[email]" />
<input name="AnderesArray[telefon]" />
Das Array AnderesArray enthält daraufhin die Schlüssel 0, 1, email und telefon.

Hinweis:

Die Angabe eines Array-Schlüssels ist in HTML optional. Wenn Sie keinen Schlüssel angeben, wird das Array in der Formular-Reihenfolge gefüllt. Im ersten Beispiel enthält also die Schlüssel 0, 1, 2 und 3.

Siehe auch: Array-Funktionen und Variablen aus externen Quellen.

Wie bekomme ich alle Werte aus einem "select multiple"-HTML-Tag?

Mit einem "select multiple"-Tag können Benutzer mehrere Werte aus einer Liste auswählen. Diese Werte werden dann an den "action handler" des Formulars (z.B. ein PHP-Skript) übergeben. Problematisch ist dabei, dass alle mit demselben Namen übergeben werden, z.B.:

<select name="var" multiple="yes">
Jede ausgewählte Option wird übergeben als:
var=option1
var=option2
var=option3
      
Jede Option wird den Inhalt der vorherigen $var-Variablen überschreiben. Die Lösung ist, die spezielle PHP-Lösung hierfür zu verwenden. Sie sollten das Tag wie folgt umschreiben:
<select name="var[]" multiple>
PHP weiß dann, dass $var als Array behandelt werden soll. Jede ausgewählte Wert wird dem Array hinzugefügt. Das erste Element wird zu $var[0], das nächste zu $var[1] etc. Die count()-Funktion kann benutzt werden, um herauszufinden, wie viele Optionen ausgewählt wurden. Mit der sort()-Funktion können Sie bei Bedarf das Array sortieren.

Beachten Sie, dass, falls Sie JavaScript benutzen, die eckigen Klammern [] im Feldnamen Probleme machen können, wenn Sie versuchen, über den Namen auf das Feld zu verweisen. Benutzen Sie stattdessen die numerische ID des Formularfelds oder schließen Sie den Variablennamen in einfache Anführungszeichen ein und benutzen Sie dies als den Index, z.B.:

variable = documents.forms[0].elements['var[]'];
      

Wie kann ich eine Variable von JavaScript an PHP übergeben?

Da JavaScript (normalerweise) nur auf dem Client läuft, während PHP (normalerweise) auf Servern läuft, und da HTTP ein "status-loses" Protokoll ist, können zwischen den beiden Sprachen keine Variablen direkt ausgetauscht werden.

Allerdings ist es trotzdem möglich, Variablen zwischen den beiden zu übergeben. Eine Möglichkeit ist, den JavaScript-Code mit PHP zu generieren. Außerdem muss die angezeigte Seite sich regelmäßig selbst aktualisieren und dabei bestimmte Variablen an das PHP-Skript übergeben. Das folgende Beispiel zeigt wie Sie dies tun können -- es ermöglicht PHP, die Bildschirmauflösung (Höhe und Breite) zu ermitteln, was normalerweise nur Client-seitig möglich ist.

Beispiel #4 JavaScript mit PHP generieren

<?php
if (isset($_GET['width']) AND isset($_GET['height'])) {
  
// Ausgabe der beiden Größenangaben
  
echo "Die Bildschirmbreite ist: "$_GET['width'] ."<br />\n";
  echo 
"Die Bildschirmhöhe ist: "$_GET['height'] ."<br />\n";
} else {
  
// Übergabe der Größenangaben
  // (der ursprüngliche 'QUERY_STRING' wird beibehalten;
  //  POST-Variablen müssen anders behandelt werden)

  
echo "<script language='javascript'>\n";
  echo 
"  location.href=\"${_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']}?${_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']}"
            
"&width=\" + screen.width + \"&height=\" + screen.height;\n";
  echo 
"</script>\n";
  exit();
}
?>


33 BenutzerBeiträge:
- Beiträge aktualisieren...
Andreas R.
1.05.2007 14:14
Actually Example 56.1 doesn't conform to what is stated in the text above it, namely:
* HTML interpretation. In order to specify a random string, you must include it in double quotes, and htmlspecialchars() the whole value.
In the example code single quotes are used instead of double quotes:
<?php
    
echo "<input type='hidden' value='" . htmlspecialchars($data) . "' />\n";
 
?>
which should be instead:
<?php
    
echo "<input type='hidden' value=\"" . htmlspecialchars($data) . "\" />\n";
 
?>
If single quotes are used, they should be escaped too using ENT_QUOTES quote style for htmlspecialchars.
francesco
7.11.2006 15:41
Another way to pass variables from JavaScript to PHP.

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
<!--
function getScreenResolution()
{
    return document.form.ScreenResolution.value = screen.width + "x" + screen.height;
}
//-->
</script>
<form name="form" action="screen.php?show=ok" method="post" >
<input name="ScreenResolution" type="text" size="20" maxlength="9" />
<input name="show" type="submit" value="Submit" onclick="getScreenResolution()" />
</form>
<?php
   
echo $_POST['ScreenResolution'];
?>
tchibolecafe at freemail dot hu
12.08.2006 13:34
Notes on question "1. What encoding/decoding do I need when I pass a value through a
form/URL?"

Doing an htmlspecialchars() when echoing a string as an HTML attribute value is not enough to make the string safe if you have accented (non-ASCII) characters in it. See http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/appendix/notes.html#non-ascii-chars

The referred document recommends the following method to be used:

<?php
 
function fs_attr($path){
   
$retval='';
    for(
$i=0;$i<strlen($path);$i++){
     
$c=$path{$i};
      if(
ord($c)<128){
       
$retval.=$c;
      }else{
       
$retval.=urlencode(utf8_encode($c));
      }
    }
    return
htmlspecialchars($retval);
  }

 
$img_path='éöüä.jpg';
  echo
'<img src="'.fs_attr($img_path).'">';
?>

However, using utf8 encoding for path names is among others supported by Windows NT, above method fails when running for example on an Apache server on Linux.

A more fail safe way:

<?php
       
function fs_attr($path){
               
$retval='';
                for(
$i=0;$i<strlen($path);$i++){
                       
$c=$path{$i};
                        if(
ord($c)<128){
                               
$retval.=$c;
                        }else{
                                if(
PHP_OS==='WINNT')
                                       
$retval.=urlencode(utf8_encode($c));
                                else
                                       
$retval.=urlencode($c);
                        }
                }

                return
htmlspecialchars($retval);
        }
?>

There may be operating systems that want utf8 encoding, other than WINNT. Even this latter one won't work on those systems. I don't know about any possibility to determine immediately which encoding to be used on the file system of the server...
dot dot dot NO php SPAM at NO willfris dot nl SPAM dot dot dot
12.07.2006 12:19
@Torsten{
In http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_8 it says:
"Unfortunately, this constraint cannot be expressed in the XHTML 1.0 DTDs."
}

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_8 also says: "When defining fragment identifiers to be backward-compatible, only strings matching the pattern [A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9:_.-]* should be used."
I'll come back to this.

Since it's all about fragment identifiers, I can't see why using an array like arrayname[] would be used. I think arrayname[name] should be used this way the fragment identifiers stay unique.
Since [ and ] are not allowed, why not use something what is allowed and use str_replace?
example:   :_. = [ & ._: = ]   so: name="arrayname:_.name._:" OR name="arrayname:_.0._:" and offcourse also add the id attribute then for backward compatibility.
Torsten
22.02.2006 23:30
Section C.8 of the XHTML spec's compatability guidelines apply to the use of the name attribute as a fragment identifier.  If you check the DTD you'll find that the 'name' attribute is still defined as CDATA for form elements.
jetboy
30.12.2005 16:06
While previous notes stating that square brackets in the name attribute are valid in HTML 4 are correct, according to this:

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_8

the type of the name attribute has been changed in XHTML 1.0, meaning that square brackets in XHTML's name attribute are not valid.

Regardless, at the time of writing, the W3C's validator doesn't pick this up on a XHTML document.
FatalError
29.12.2005 23:29
Actually, you can pass variables between JavaScript and PHP without even refreshing the page. To do this, you have to use AJAX, which is what dmsuperman at comcast dot net was showing in that example.
tms at infamous dot net
23.11.2005 3:23
Regarding drane's claim that square brackets ([]) in form input elements (as PHP uses for arrays in forms) are invalid HTML: the NAME attribute of an input element is CDATA, not NAME or ID.

Square brackets are allowed in CDATA, no problem.

(Link is mangled because it's too long:

http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/ interact/forms.html#h-17.4
rybasso
6.10.2005 23:19
If U wish to build POST request depend on form which contains select-multiple use the following js code:

var id = theForm.elements[e].id;

if (theForm.elements[e].type=='select-multiple') {
                for (f=0;f<theForm.elements[e].length;f++) {
                    if(theForm.elements[e].options[f].selected==true)
                         qs+= id+'['+f+']='+escape(theForm.elements[e].options[f].value);
                         qs+=(qs=='')?'':'&';   
                }
            }
dmsuperman at comcast dot net
10.09.2005 18:05
Here's a great way to pass JavaScript to PHP without even leaving the page:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--

function xmlreq(){
  if(window.XMLHttpRequest){
    req = new XMLHttpRequest();
  }else if(window.ActiveXObject){
    req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }
  return(req);
}
function sendPhp(url){
  var req = xmlreq();
  req.onreadystatechange = stateHandler;
  req.open("GET", url, true);
  req.send(null);
}

sendPhp("updatedatabase.php?username=blah&displayname=whatever");
//-->
</script>
fuchs at michaelfuchs dot org
9.08.2005 9:54
Here's a new one, which might cause problems for people:

To make my multiple select box contents accessible to both PHP and JavaScript (using getElementById()), I was using both name and id attributes - and naming them the same, for consistency:

<select multiple="multiple" id="bob[]" name="bob[]">

However, I've discovered that - for reasons unknown - using the brackets in the id causes only a single value (rather than multiple values) to get returned to the $_POST['bob'] array. What you want is:

<select multiple="multiple" id="bob" name="bob[]">

Hope this saves some time/frustration.
fib at affordit dot fr
13.07.2005 16:26
I was working on a small interface for a client and he wanted a template to be generated dynamically. The issue came up when I had to retrieve the values for an array of text variables. I couldn't find any tutorial to help me out so after a few investigations this is how I made it work:
 
<?php

  $line_class
=array();
 
$line_item=array();
 
    for (
$i=$rows_number;$i>0;$i--)
      {
      
$line_class[$i]=$_POST['line_class'.$i.''];
      
$line_item[$i]=$_POST['line_item'.$i.''];
      }

?>

 Hope this helps someone ... at least they will do the job sooner than I did :D.
levinb at cs dot rpi dot edu
17.06.2005 6:17
Well, I was working on this one project, on the assumption that I could get the values of all elements with the same name from an appropriately named array.  Well, I was *very* disappointed when I couldn't, so I made it so I did anyway.

The following script should convert the raw post data to a $_POST variable, with form data from SELECT elements and their ilk being transformed into an array.  It's heavily unoptimized, and I probably missed something, but it's relatively easy to read.  I welcome corrections.

<?php

if ($_POST) {
       
$postdata = file_get_contents('php://input');
       
       
$uglybugger = '/(?<=&)([^&=]+)(?:=([^&]*))/';
       
$matches = array();

       
preg_match_all($uglybugger, $postdata, $matches);

       
$_POST = array();

       
$match_count = count($matches[0]);
        for (
$i = 0; $i < $match_count; $i++) {
                if (!isset(
$_POST[$matches[1][$i]])) {
                       
$_POST[$matches[1][$i]] = array();
                }
               
$_POST[$matches[1][$i]][] = $matches[2][$i];
        }
       
$match_count = count($_POST);
        for (
$i = 0; $i < $match_count; $i++) {
                if (
count($_POST[$i]) == 1) {
                       
$_POST[$i] = $_POST[$i][0];
                }
        }
}

?>
noah at noah dot org
10.05.2005 19:10
In your action, "random_picker_action.php"
shouldn't you initialize $picks? The code didn't work
for me until I added the line:
    $picks = $_REQUEST['picks'];

Here is the full random_picker_action.php

Yours,
Noah

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
   <title>How to Pass an Array from Javascript to PHP: Action Page</title>
  <!-- File: random_picker_action.php -->
</head>
<body>
<p>
<h3>How to Pass an Array from Javascript to PHP: Action Page</h3>
<?php
  $picks
= $_REQUEST['picks'];
 
$picks = urldecode(stripslashes($picks));
  echo
"<b>JavaScript said: " . $picks . "</b><p>";
 
$picks = unserialize($picks);
  if(
sizeof($picks) > 0)
  {
  
reset($picks);
   echo
"You picked the following items:<p>";
   while(
$item = each($picks))
     echo 
$item['value'] . " off, " . str_replace("_", " ", $item['key']) . "<br>";
  }
  else
   echo
"You did not pick any items<p>";
?>
</body>
</html>
richard dot prangnell at ntlworld dot com
27.02.2005 18:09
Further to my note posted on  26-Feb-2005 at 04:44, I have refined the JavaScript function "send_picks()" to make it more robust and universal. The original version was designed to handle string keys and +ve integer key values only; fine for the original purpose of handling random picks for a shopping cart application but it produced a mal-formed array if any -ve or non-integer key values were submitted. The new version treats both keys and key values as strings, irrespective of the data type; and we all know just how easy it is to manipulate numeric strings as numbers in PHP:-). Key values can now be anything you like; including:
"5"
"2 dozen"
"A gross"
"12.5"
"blue"
and so forth. Here's the updated code:

    <script type="text/javascript">
      function send_picks()
      {
        form1.picks.value="";
        var e, picked = 0;
        for (var i = 0 ; i < form1.elements.length - 2; i++)
        {
          e = form1.elements[i];
          if(e.value != "0" && e.value.length > 0)
          {
            e = form1.elements[i]
            picked++;
                form1.picks.value = form1.picks.value + "s:"
              + e.name.length + ":\"" + e.name + "\";s:"
              + e.value.length + ":\"" + e.value + "\";";
          }
        }
        form1.picks.value = "a:" + picked + ":{" + form1.picks.value + "}";
      }
    </script>

Note the line:
        for (var i = 0 ; i < form1.elements.length - 2; i++)
The  "-2" term is to let the function skip the last 2 elements in the form, a "hidden" input and the "submit" button. No doubt different form layouts will need a different value here.
An incidental bonus is that getting JavaScript to process a floating point input as a string rather than a number avoids the usual rounding errors that tend to turn an input such as "1.2" into a number beginning 1.199999... with about 30 places of decimals - yes, its JavaScript rather than PHP that is responsible for this kind of behaviour.
richard dot prangnell at ntlworld dot com
26.02.2005 17:44
The following HTML form page and PHP action page illustrate an elegant and powerful client side JavaScript to server side PHP data transfer technique perfectly matched to PHP's associative array feature. Browse to the form page and select some items by entering an INTEGER > 1 then click on Submit (Don't put strings or reals in the input fields - error trapping has been stripped out for brevity). Try selecting one, some, all or none of the items, changing the names of the form input variables (and the associated labels, for clarity!) or adding to the number of items "on offer". At no point do you need to alter either the JavaScript function or the action page in any way - just be aware that extra coding and error trapping is required - especially where the key values in the application could be something other than integers:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
    <title>How to Pass an Array from Javascript to PHP: Form Page</title>
  <!-- File: random_picker.php -->
    <script type="text/javascript">
      function send_picks()
      {
        form1.picks.value="";
        var picked = 0;
        for (var i = 0 ; i < form1.elements.length; i++)
        {
          if(form1.elements[i].value > 0)
          {
            e = form1.elements[i]
            picked++;
                form1.picks.value = form1.picks.value + "s:" + e.name.length + ":\""
            + e.name + "\";i:" + e.value + ";";

          }
        }
        form1.picks.value = "a:" + picked + ":{" + form1.picks.value + "}";
      }
    </script>
</head>
<body>
<p>
<h3 align="center">How to Pass an Array from Javascript to PHP: Form Page</h3>
<form name="form1" action="random_picker_action.php" method="post"
  onsubmit="JavaScript:send_picks()">
<table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0">
  <tr><td>Item 13</td>
  <td><input type="text" name="item_13" value="0" size="4"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td>Part number 2</td>
  <td><input type="text" name="Part_number_2" value="0" size="4"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td>Drawing ref 327</td>
  <td><input type="text" name="Drawing_ref_327" value="0" size="4"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td>Organic Carrots</td>
  <td><input type="text" name="Organic_carrots" value="0" size="4"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr><td colspan="2" align="center">
      <input type="submit" value="Submit Picks">
      <input type="hidden" name="picks" value=""></td>
  </tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>
</html>

The action page for the above form page is listed below. Notice the really ingenious feature; the form variable is simply unserialized  to turn it into a fully functional PHP array! The action page doesn't need to know anything about "expected" variable names because everything PHP needs to know is right inside the array. Note also that for maximum efficiency only "picked" item data is sent. If no items at all are picked, a perfectly formed empty array is sent:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
    <title>How to Pass an Array from Javascript to PHP: Action Page</title>
  <!-- File: random_picker_action.php -->
</head>
<body>
<p>
<h3>How to Pass an Array from Javascript to PHP: Action Page</h3>
<?php
  $picks
= urldecode(stripslashes($picks));
  echo
"<b>JavaScript said: " . $picks . "</b><p>";
 
$picks = unserialize($picks);
  if(
sizeof($picks) > 0)
  {
   
reset($picks);
    echo
"You picked the following items:<p>";
    while(
$item = each($picks))
      echo 
$item['value'] . " off, " . str_replace("_", " ", $item['key']) . "<br>";
  }
  else
    echo
"You did not pick any items<p>";
?>
</body>
</html>

I hope you find this technique useful - let me know what you think - I can already hear the jaws of Java Jocks dropping!
alberto dot delatorre at gmail dot com
15.01.2005 20:41
Other way to make a form with array fields, and use JavaScript features on them, is use both name and id attributes on the field as:

<input type="text" name="myfield[]" id="myfield1"/>
<input type="text" name="myfield[]" id="myfield2"/>
<script language="JavaScript">
document.getElementById("myfield1");
document.getElementById("myfield2");
</script>

This is an easy way to do it. To number the fields, do a simple for structure and you have done.
dreptack at op dot pl
2.01.2005 21:37
I needed to post html form through image input element. But my problem was I had to use multiple image-buttons, each one for a single row of form table. Pressing the button was mention to tell script to delete this row from table and also (in the same request) save other data from the form table.
I wrote simple test-script to see what variable I should check for in a script:

I have a html document:

<form action="test.php" method="post">
<input type="image" name="varscalar" src="/images/no.gif" />
<input type="image" name="vararray[12]" src="/images/no.gif" />
</form>

And a php script:
<?php
 
if ($_POST) {
    echo
"post: <pre>"; print_r($_POST); echo '</pre>';
  }
?>

What I've discovered suprised me a lot!

After hitting on varscalar:

post:
Array
(
    [varscalar_x] => 6
    [varscalar_y] => 7
)

After hitting on upper right corner of vararray:

post:
Array
(
    [vararray] => Array
        (
            [12] => 2
        )

)

This mean when clicking on image-type input element, which name is an array, only y-part of a value is remembered.

The result is the same on: php 4.1.2 on Win98se, php 4.3.9-1 on linux
seec77 at zahav dot net dot il
22.12.2004 12:35
Another unfortunate result of appending "[]" to input field names to pass form data in arrays to PHP, is that people will be able to detect you are running PHP. You can tell by the whole documentation section on hiding PHP, that some people might not want the public to know their site is generated with PHP (usually for security reasons), but the "[]" will blow your cover.
So beware! If you are trying to hide PHP, you will have to stay away from passing form data as arrays!
Karen
5.08.2004 2:38
I am using code I got from SitePoint that uses stripslashes because of magic quotes...I finally figured out that it kept my html form select multiple field from working correctly even though I was using name="arrName[]" as the field name -- I was only getting the word array as the value, and all the things I tried there was nothing else there. The stripslashes was part of an included include file, so it took me hours to debug.  Hopefully this will help keep others from wasting time.
Jim Granger
19.06.2004 7:11
Kenn White wrote:

So for XHTML strict, the bottom line:
 1. form, use id, not name
 2. input, use id if you can, but if you need to use bracketed notation (for example, passing PHP arrays), i.e., foo[], you *MUST* use name for XHTML strict validation.

I don't think they are going to deprecate name entirely. For one thing, to be of any use, radio boxes and occasionally checkboxes must have the same identifying mark, in this case a name. By the rules of the DTD, id's MUST be unique. In that respect, it is probably better to not use id in input elements at all.

Of course, it's a good idea to use ids as sparingly as possible.
ppmm at wuxinan dot net
14.06.2004 1:11
3. How do I create arrays in a HTML <form>?

The feature is nice in the sense of simplifying programming. However, this does have side-effect. Look at this URL below:

http://www.php.net/source.php?url[]=/index.php

As a common viewpoint, exposing the absolute filesystem path in the webpage is always a bad thing. I reported this problem at bugs.php.net a few days before and I get a response saying "it's up to programmers". I think it's fair, however, webmaster should really learn to check the variables at the beginning of the script. In the above case, the PHP script should at least check like this:

if (!is_string(url)) die("with some error message");

As what I experienced, many PHP-based websites have this problem. I would think a perfect solution is that PHP does not do this automatic parsing, and when a PHP script expects an array to be posted, they would do something like

parse_http_array($_GET, "url");

only after this point, $_GET['url']) exists. Before this statement, only $_GET['url[]'] is available. Well, I am kind of too demanding I guess, but what I really intended to say is that webmaster should know this problem.
vlad at vkelman dot com
5.06.2004 4:04
"4.  How do I get all the results from a select multiple HTML tag?"

I think that behavior of PHP which forces to use [] after a name of 'select' control with multiple attribute specified is very unfortunate. I understand it comes from old times when registerglobals = on was commonly used. But it creates incompatibility between PHP and ASP or other server-side scripting languages. The same HTML page with 'select' control cannot post to PHP and ASP server pages, because ASP does not require [] and automatically recognize when arrays are posted.
Kenn White kennwhite dot nospam at hotmail dot com
13.03.2004 17:18
Concerning XHTML Strict and array notation in forms, hopefully the information below will be useful:

If I have a form, name="f", and, say, an input text box, name="user_data[Password]", then in Javascript, to reference it I would do something like:
   
var foo = f['user_data[Password]'].value;

Now, say that in making the switch to XHTML strict, I decide to fully embrace standards compliance, and change my form to id="f", and the input text box to id="user_data[Password]"

Because these have id instead of name, I discover, that all my javascript validation routines just broke.  It seems that I have to now change all my js code to something like:

document.getElementById( 'user_data[Password]' ).focus();

I test this on all the major modern browsers, and it works well.  I'm thinking, Great!  Until I try to validate said page.  It turns out that the bracket characters are invalid in id attributes.  Ack!  So I read this thread:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=
UTF-8&th=78dea36fd65d9bbe&seekm=
pqx99.19%24006.13377%40news.ca.inter.net#link11
(link needs to be spliced, sorry)

What does this mean, I start asking myself?  Do I have to abandon my goal to migrate to XHTML strict?  Transitional seems so unsatisfying.  And why bother with a technique that seems to work on most browsers, if it's broken.  Alas, there is hope.

But then I read http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#h-4.10 carefully.  It says "name" is deprecated as a form attribute, but *NOT* specifically as an attribute in form *elements*.  It seems my solution is to use "id" for the form itself, but I can legally use "name" for the individual form components, such as select and text input boxes.  I get the impression that "name" as an attribute is eventually going away completely, but in extensive testing using the W3C validator, it passes "name" on form components, as long as "id" (or, strangely, nothing) is used to denote the form itself.

So for XHTML strict, the bottom line:
 1. form, use id, not name
 2. input, use id if you can, but if you need to use bracketed notation (for example, passing PHP arrays), i.e., foo[], you *MUST* use name for XHTML strict validation.
 
-kenn

kennwhite.nospam@hotmail.com
davis at risingtiger dot net
9.01.2004 21:14
I thought this might be useful to fellow PHP heads like myself out there.

I recently came across a need to transfer full fledged mutli-dimensional arrays from PHP to JAVASCRIPT.

So here it is and hopefuly good things come from it.

<?php
function phparray_jscript($array, $jsarray)
{
    function
loop_through($array,$dimen,$localarray)
    {
        foreach(
$array as $key => $value)
        {
            if(
is_array($value))
            {
                echo (
$localarray.$dimen."[\"$key\"] = new Array();\n");
               
loop_through($value,($dimen."[\"".$key."\"]"),$localarray);
            }
            else
            {
                echo (
$localarray.$dimen."[\"$key\"] = \"$value\";\n");
            }
        }
    }

    echo
"<script language=\"Javascript1.1\">\n";
    echo
"var $jsarray = new Array();\n";
   
loop_through($array,"",$jsarray);
    echo
"</script>";
}
?>
email at njschedules dot com
19.10.2003 6:13
If you try to include an XHTML document in a PHP document, you may be including this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

which would, of course, be read as PHP code. To avoid this problem, use:

<?php echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"iso-8859-1\"?>"; ?>

Hope I can save you from those nasty warning messages :)

4.10.2003 0:25
Responding to the suggestion for using this line:

<form onSubmit="selection.name=selection.name + '[]'">

This did not work for me.  I had to make a function makeArray:

function makeArray(selectBox)
{
selectBox.name=selectBox.name + "[]";
}

Then, in the submit button, add this:

onClick='makeArray(this.form.selection)'

I couldn't get anything else to work.

--Rafi
jasonpb at bellsouth dot net
30.09.2003 8:29
Another good way for passing javascript to php without having to have a page reload is to use an img tag.

(example)
Add this where you want to collect the vars from
This can also be a .html page
<script language="javascript">
<!--//
// Define variables
if (navigator.appname != 'Netscape') {color= "color="+screen.colorDepth+"&";}
else {color = "color="+screen.pixelDepth+"&";}
avail = "avail="+screen.availwidth+"x"+screen.availheight+"&";
res = "res="+screen.width+"x"+screen.height;
isize = '" width="1" height="1" border="0"';
// Generate img tag
img = '<img name="img"
src="javascript.php?'+color+avail+res+isize+'">';
//Print it to browser
document.write(img);
//-->
</script>

Now you have the javascript vars passed along to the javascript.php page, all thats left is to add a couple lines of php code to gather the info up.

(example)
<?
// Get the vars from the javascript
$res = $_GET['res'];
$avail_res = $_GET['avail'];
$color_depth = $_GET['color'];
// Do something with the info
echo "You Screen's Resolution is $res, Your Available Screen Resolution is $avail_res, and the Color Depth on your screen is $color_depth.";
?>
Thats it!!
Hope it may help someone!
martellare at hotmail dot com
15.03.2003 21:28
I do not think you are right about not being able to specify something for the value attribute, but I can see where you would have thought it would fail:

A fair warning about testing to see if a variable exists...
when it comes to strings, the values '' and '0' are interpreted as false when tested this way...

<?php
if ($string) { ... }  //false for $string == '' || $string == '0'
?>

The best practice for testing to see if you received a variable from the form (which in the case of a checkbox, only happens when it is checked) is to test using this...

<?php
if ( isSet($string) ) { ... } //true if and only if the variable is set
?>

The function tests to see if the variable has been set, regardless of its contents.

By the way, if anyone's curious, when you do make a checkbox without specifying the value attribute, the value sent from the form for that checkbox becomes 'on'.  (That's for HTML in general, not PHP-specific).
martellare at hotmail dot com
26.11.2002 20:25
A JavaScript Note: Using element indexes to reference form elements can cause problems when you want to add new elements to your form; it can shift the indexes of the elements that are already there.

For example, You've got an array of checkboxes that exist at the beginning of a form:
===================

<FORM>
    <INPUT type="checkbox" name="fruits[]" value="apple">apple
    <INPUT type="checkbox" name="fruits[]" value="orange">orange
    <INPUT type="checkbox" name="fruits[]" value="banana">banana
</FORM>

===================
... These elements could be referenced in JavaScript like so:
===================

<SCRIPT language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
    var index = 0; //could be 1 or 2 as well
    alert(document.forms[0].elements[index]);
//-->
</SCRIPT>

===================
However, if you added a new textbox before these elements, the checkboxes indexes become 1 - 3 instead of 0 - 2;  That can mess up what ever code you create depending on those indexes.

Instead, try referencing your html arrays in JavaScript this way.  I know it works in Netscape 4 & IE 6, I hope it to some extent is universal...
===================

<SCRIPT language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
    var message = "";
    for (var i = 0; i < document.forms[0].elements['fruits[]'].length; i++)
    {
        message += "events[" + i + "]: " + document.forms[0].elements['fruits[]'][i].value + "\n";
    }
    alert(message);
//-->
</SCRIPT>

===================
karatidt at web dot de
17.11.2002 21:57
this code selects all elements with javascript
and hands them over to an array in php *sorry my english is not good*

javascript:

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
function SelectAll(combo)
 {
   for (var i=0;i<combo.options.length;i++)
    {
      combo.options[i].selected=true;
    }
 }
//-->
</script>

html code:
<form name="form" action="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]; ?>" method="post">
<select name="auswahl[]" size="10" multiple>
<option value="bill@ms.com">Bill Gates</option>
<option value="bill@unemployed.com">Bill Clinton</option>
<option value="bart@brat.com">Bart Simpson</option>
<option value="oj@free.com">OJ Simpson</option>
<option value="j@nbc.com">Jay Leno</option>
</select>

<input type="submit" name="submit1"  value="OK" onclick="SelectAll(document.form.elements['auswahl[]'])">
</form>

php code:

$auswahl = $_POST["auswahl"];
       
foreach ($auswahl as $value)
    {
        echo $value."<br>";
    }
bas at cipherware dot nospam dot com
17.10.2002 18:52
Ad 3. "How do I create arrays in a HTML <form>?":

You may have problems to access form elements, which have [] in their name, from JavaScript. The following syntax works in IE and Mozilla (Netscape).

index = 0;
theForm = document.forms[0];
theTextField = theForm['elementName[]'][index];
hjncom at hjncom dot net
25.05.2002 12:30
I think '[' and ']' are valid characters for name attributes.

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.4
-> InputType of 'name' attribute is 'CDATA'(not 'NAME' type)

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#h-6.2
-> about CDATA('name' attribute is not 'NAME' type!)
...CDATA is a sequence of characters from the document character set and may include character entities...

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/sgml/entities.html
--> about character entity references in HTML 4
([ - &#91, ] - &#93)



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