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.
PHP と HTML
PHP と HTML は深く関係しています。PHP は HTML を生成し、HTML には PHP に 送信される情報が記述されています。 以下の FAQ を読む前に、どうやって 外部から来る変数を取得するかを読んでおくことは重要です。 このマニュアルにはこのトピックに関するよい例があります。 register_globals の意味するところにも 注意を払ってください。
- フォームから、もしくは URL から値を渡す場合にはどういった エンコード/デコードが必要なのですか?
-
エンコードが重要になる場面はいくつかあります。 string $data という エンコードされていない文字列データを渡す場合について考えてみると、
-
HTML を通じて渡す場合: 文字列にはどのような値が含まれるか分からないので、 データは必ず htmlspecialchars を行い、 ダブルクオートで囲まなければなりません。
-
URL を通じて渡す場合: URL はいくつかのパーツから成り立ちます。 このデータをそのパーツのうちの一つであると解釈させたいならば、 urlencode() でエンコード しなければなりません。
例1 HTML の hidden 要素
<?php
echo '<input type="hidden" value="' . htmlspecialchars($data) . '" />'."\n";
?>注意: $data を urlencode() をしては いけません。なぜなら、その作業はブラウザに任されているからです。 一般に普及している全てのブラウザは正しくこの処理を行ってくれます。 ただ、この処理はメソッド(GET や POST)が何であるかにかかわらずに 行われるということに気をつけてください。この処理に気づくのは GET リクエストのときだけになるでしょう。なぜなら POST リクエストの内容は通常目に触れることは無いからです。
例2 ユーザーによって編集するデータ
<?php
echo "<textarea name='mydata'>\n";
echo htmlspecialchars($data)."\n";
echo "</textarea>";
?>注意: ブラウザはエスケープされたシンボルを解釈するので、data は 意図したとおりに表示されます。 フォームの内容を送信するとき、GET か POST かにかかわらず data は ブラウザによって URL エンコードされ、PHP によって URL デコードされます。 要は、URL エンコード/デコードを自分で行う必要はなく、これらの処理は すべて自動的に行われると言うことです。
例3 URL 中の場合
<?php
echo '<a href="' . htmlspecialchars("/nextpage.php?stage=23&data=" .
urlencode($data)) . '">'."\n";
?>注意: この例では、実は GET リクエストを摸擬しています。このため、data を手動で urlencode() する必要があります。
注意: 全ての URL を htmlspecialchars() する必要があります。 なぜなら、この URL は HTML の value 属性として扱われるからです。 この場合は、ブラウザはまず htmlspecialchars() された データを元に戻し、それから URL を渡します。URL は urlencode() されているので、PHP はこれを正しく 解釈することができます。 URL 中の & が & に置き換えられていることに気づくでしょう。もしあなたがこれを忘れても ほとんどのブラウザは元に戻してくれますが、必ずそうしてくれるとは 限りませんので、URL が動的に変更されるものでなくても URL は htmlspecialchars() されるべき です。
-
- <input type="image"> タグを使おうとしているのですが、変数 $foo.x と $foo.y が使えません。どうすればよいのですか?
-
以下のようなタグを使えば、標準のボタンの代わりに画像を使用して フォームを送信することができます。
ユーザーが画像のどこかをクリックすると、そのフォームの内容に foo.x と foo.y という 2 つの変数が追加され、サーバーに送信されます。<input type="image" src="image.gif" name="foo" />
PHP では $foo.x と $foo.y という名前は変数名として正しくないので、 自動的に $foo_x と $foo_y という名前に変換されます。要は、ピリオドが アンダースコアに置き換えられる、と言うことです。そのため、これらの 変数にアクセスする際には 外部から来る変数 の取得についてのセクションで記述されているのと同様な方法を とります。たとえば $_GET['foo_x'] などです。
注意:
リクエスト変数名の中のスペースは、アンダースコアに置き換えられます。
- HTML フォームで配列を使用するにはどうすればよいですか?
-
フォームの内容を PHP スクリプトで配列として受け取るには、 <input>、<select> あるいは <textarea> といった要素の name を以下のように指定します:
変数名の最後にある括弧に注意してください。これにより、フォー ムの内容が配列として扱われます。異なる要素に同じ名前をつけること で要素を配列にグループ分けすることができます。<input name="MyArray[]" /> <input name="MyArray[]" /> <input name="MyArray[]" /> <input name="MyArray[]" />
上記の HTML の場合、MyArray と MyOtherArray という 2 つの配列が生成され、 PHP スクリプトに送信されます。また、配列に特定のキーを設定する こともできます。<input name="MyArray[]" /> <input name="MyArray[]" /> <input name="MyOtherArray[]" /> <input name="MyOtherArray[]" />
この場合、配列 AnotherArray のキーは 0、1、email そして phone となります。<input name="AnotherArray[]" /> <input name="AnotherArray[]" /> <input name="AnotherArray[email]" /> <input name="AnotherArray[phone]" />
注意:
HTML に配列のキーを指定するかどうかは自由です。キーを指定しなかった 場合はフォームに現れる順番に番号がつけられます。最初の例だと、 キーは 0、1、2、3 となります。
- "select multiple" タグで選択された全ての結果を取得するには どうすればよいですか?
-
"select multiple" タグを使うと、ユーザーはリストから複数の項目を 選択することができるようになります。選択された項目はフォームの action で指定されたハンドラに渡されます。問題は、これらの値が全て 同じ名前で渡されることです。つまり、
選択されたそれぞれの項目は action のハンドラに次のように渡されます:<select name="var" multiple="yes">
それぞれの項目は前の変数 $var の値を上書きして しまいます。この問題を解決するには、PHPの "フォームの値を配列にする" 機能を使います。以下のようにするとよいでしょう。var=option1 var=option2 var=option3こうすれば PHP に $var を配列として扱うように 知らせることができ、各項目の value の値は配列の要素として var[] に 追加されます。最初の項目は $var[0] になり、 次の項目は $var[1]... というようになります。 count() 関数を使えば選択された項目の数を知る ことができます。またもし必要なら sort() 関数を 使ってソートを行うこともできます。<select name="var[]" multiple="yes">
JavaScript を使っている場合、フォーム要素に要素名を使って(訳注: document.myform.myelement.value 等の様に)アクセスしようとすると、 要素名に含まれる [] が問題となることがあるので 気をつけてください。この場合は、数字で表されるフォーム要素の ID を 使用するか、シングルクオートで要素名を囲んでフォーム要素の配列の インデックスとしてアクセスしてください。例えば、以下のようにします:
variable = documents.forms[0].elements['var[]'];
- Javascript から PHP に変数を渡すには?
-
Javascript は(普通は)クライアントサイド技術であり、一方 PHP は(普通は) サーバーサイド技術です。また HTTP は"ステートレスな"プロトコルです。 そのため、この二つの言語はダイレクトに変数を共有することができません。
しかしながら、この二つの言語の間で変数を渡すことは可能です。 一つの方法は PHP と一緒に Javascript のコードを生成し、 ブラウザに自動的にリフレッシュ(再ロード)させることです。 以下の例はまさにそれで、PHP に画面の高さと幅を認識させています。 これは通常はクライアントサイドでしかできないことです。
例4 PHP による Javascript の生成
<?php
if (isset($_GET['width']) AND isset($_GET['height'])) {
// ジオメトリ値を出力する
echo "画面の幅: ". $_GET['width'] ."<br />\n";
echo "画面の高さ: ". $_GET['height'] ."<br />\n";
} else {
// ジオメトリ変数を渡す
// (元のクエリ文字列を保持する
// -- POST 変数は別の方法で扱う必要がある)
echo "<script language='javascript'>\n";
echo " location.href=\"${_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']}?${_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']}"
. "&width=\" + screen.width + \"&height=\" + screen.height;\n";
echo "</script>\n";
exit();
}
?>
I needed to post html form through image input element. But my problem was I had to use multiple image-buttons, each one for a single row of form table. Pressing the button was mention to tell script to delete this row from table and also (in the same request) save other data from the form table.
I wrote simple test-script to see what variable I should check for in a script:
I have a html document:
<form action="test.php" method="post">
<input type="image" name="varscalar" src="/images/no.gif" />
<input type="image" name="vararray[12]" src="/images/no.gif" />
</form>
And a php script:
<?php
if ($_POST) {
echo "post: <pre>"; print_r($_POST); echo '</pre>';
}
?>
What I've discovered suprised me a lot!
After hitting on varscalar:
post:
Array
(
[varscalar_x] => 6
[varscalar_y] => 7
)
After hitting on upper right corner of vararray:
post:
Array
(
[vararray] => Array
(
[12] => 2
)
)
This mean when clicking on image-type input element, which name is an array, only y-part of a value is remembered.
The result is the same on: php 4.1.2 on Win98se, php 4.3.9-1 on linux
I thought this might be useful to fellow PHP heads like myself out there.
I recently came across a need to transfer full fledged mutli-dimensional arrays from PHP to JAVASCRIPT.
So here it is and hopefuly good things come from it.
<?php
function phparray_jscript($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>";
}
?>
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>
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.
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.
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).
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>
===================
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'];
?>
"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.
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
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];
}
}
}
?>
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...
@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.
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.
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.
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.
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>";
}
Using jquery is even easier to send (post) data between javascript and php
<?php
//make an asynchronous request
$.post("somefile.php", {"Param1" : true, "Param2" : 1, "Param3" : "some text"},
function(received_data)
{
//do something with received data
$("#some_element").html(received_data);
});
//make a post request
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "somefile.php",
data: {"Param1" : true, "Param2" : 1, "Param3" : "some text"},
success: function(received_data)
{//do something with received data},
async: false
});
?>
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.
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
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=='')?'':'&';
}
}
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!
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.
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.
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 :)
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
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!
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];
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
([ - [, ] - ])
To pass information from php to javascript is fairly easy. In the form section you can do something like this:
<form name="InfoPassed" action="MaterialModule.php" method="post">
<input type="text" name="PhpVariable" value="<?php print $_SESSION['Name']; ?>"/>
</form>
<script type="text/javascript">
var value=document.InfoPassed.PhpVariable.value;
</script>
but doing it the other way (i.e. from Javascript to PHP) is impossible without involving the submit button
<form name="InfoPassed" action="MaterialModule.php" method="post">
<input type="text" name="PhpVariable"/>
<input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
</form>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.InfoPassed.PhpVariable.value=200;
</script>
<?php
if(isset($_POST["PhpVariable"])){
//do stuff with variable
}
?>
I'm more than happy to be corrected but none of the examples stated it was possible to do it without the submit button.
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.
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!
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>
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.
