Solution to: How do I get PHP to understand form element arrays as encoded by jQuery’s .serialize()?
You could say that this “solution” is simple and I am stupid (and you might be right on both counts). Still, I thought I would post it anyway so that someone might save the 30 minutes it took me to figure it out.
Whilst creating a jQuery .load() function that used .serialize() to send data to a PHP script, I had some issues with multiple choice checkboxes (only the relevant code is displayed here):
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<form id="my-form"> <input type="checkbox" name="features" id="features-0" value="Central A/C"> Central A/C <input type="checkbox" name="features" id="features-1" value="Handicap Interior"> Handicap Interior <input type="checkbox" name="features" id="features-2" value="Smoking"> Smoking <input type="checkbox" name="features" id="features-3" value="OAllow Pets"> Allow Pets <input type="checkbox" name="features" id="features-4" value="Wireless Internet"> Wireless Internet </form> |
Then:
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$('#my-div').load('form-processor.php?' + $('#my-form').serialize()); |
The PHP script would only pick up the value for the last checked checkbox. So if I checked all the checkboxes, for instance, <?php echo $_GET['features']; ?> would display “Wireless Internet”, rather than “Array()”. PHP should see the same-named checkboxes as an array. right?
Solution
PHP requires the array delimiters ([]) to follow a variable name for two or more form elements with the same name (yes, I knew this!). So this:
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<input type="checkbox" name="features" id="features-0" value="Central A/C"> |
Becomes this:
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<input type="checkbox" name="features[]" id="features-0" value="Central A/C"> |
And there you have it. Like I said, simple and stupid.
