I'm using check-boxes to alter an SQL query.
The HTML:
<input type="checkbox" name="chapter" value="7" /><label>ch. 7</label><br />
<input type="checkbox" name="chapter" value="13" /><label>ch. 13</label>
The PHP:
//adjust query for chapter
$chap = $_POST['chapter'];
$chapter = "";
if(!empty($chap)){
$N = count($chap);
if($N == 1){
$chapter .= " AND chapter = '".$chap[0]."'";
}else{
$chapter .= " AND (chapter = '".$chap[0]."' OR chapter = '".$chap[1]."')";
}
}
$zquery = "SELECT * FROM records WHERE ".$zipcodes.$chapter;
When the check boxes are left unchecked it works fine. When the chapter 7 box is checked it works fine. The trouble is with that 13 box. When I check that, $chap[] only returns a value of "1" instead of "13". For example, when I var_dump $zquery I get string(3384) "SELECT * FROM records WHERE (party_zip='34683' OR party_zip='34682' ) AND chapter = '1'".
Also, $N is always returning 1, even if I check both boxes. Is $_POST['chapter'] not an array? Why is it only returning the first character in the string?
Namaste
Both Dr. Molle and Douglas are correct, but I'd like to expand a little on their answers.
$_POST is an array. It can contain a variety of values, either in a key => value structure or in a series of values indexed numerically. Each value can be any other type of data. In this case, your variable:
$_POST['chapter']
is a string, most likely - PHP interprets the array index ([0], etc) as a character index when used against a string (or against a variable that can be trivially cast to string, like an integer or float.) This is why you're getting the first letter out instead of the first value: there's only the one value to get!
Of course, you might run into situations where the value of an array is itself an array - in which case you could access the value by typing, say, $array[0]['candles'] or something, but that's not going to happen with the $_POST array (which is always an array of strings.)
$_POST['chapter'] is not an array, use square brackets inside the name of the inputs:
<input type="checkbox" name="chapter[]" value="7" /><label>ch. 7</label><br />
<input type="checkbox" name="chapter[]" value="13" /><label>ch. 13</label>
Try removing the [0] if you only want one value returned from your form
$chapter .= " AND chapter = '".$chap."'";
Alternatively (and likely what you want), change your inputs to arrays and it should work
<input type="checkbox" name="chapter[]" value="7" /><label>ch. 7</label><br />
<input type="checkbox" name="chapter[]" value="13" /><label>ch. 13</label>
$_POST is work as array it print all value of items post through form to know post values use
echo"<pre>";
print_r($_POST);
$_POST work as array it contains all values which we posted through form.
for getting each value we can also use
foreach ($_POST as $value )
{
echo $values."</br>";
}
$_POST['chapter'] is not an array. $N is returning 1 beacuse $chap is not an array, if variable is not an array then count() function always returned 1.
You can use like
name="chapter[]"
Then $_POST['chapter'] should be an array.