Re: Dynamic Forms

On Friday, January 16, 2004, at 02:15 AM, Robert Temple wrote:

Can anyone suggest a PHP solution to creating a form that gets built after a client enters a variable? For example: an automobile insurance form that first asks how many cars you have, and then creates a form with fields for car 1, car 2, etc. I have found JavaScript code that will do this, but I would rather use a server side language like PHP for more consistency and browser compatibility.

step1.php --- <form action='step2.php' method='post'> How many cars do you own? <input type='text' size='2' name='numberOfCars'> <input type='submit'> </form> --- step2.php --- <form action='step3.php' method='post'> <? $i=0; while($i < $_POST['numberOfCars']) { $i++; echo "<h2>car number {$i}</h2>"; echo "Make <input type='text' size='50' name='car[{$i}][\"make\"]'><br>"; echo "Model <input type='text' size='50' name='car[{$i}][\"model\"]'><br>"; echo "<hr>"; } ?> <input type='submit' /> </form> --- This will produce an array of cars ($car[1] to $car[n]), each of which is an array of two elements make and model. Haven't done any work with arrays? Now is a good time :) step3.php --- <pre><? print_r($_POST) ?></pre> --- This code is there just to show you the array structure... you'd change it to ad items to a database, etc. Example output: --- Array (

    [car] => Array
        (
            [1] => Array
                (
                    ["make"] => datsun
                    ["model"] => 1600
                )

            [2] => Array
                (
                    ["make"] => toyota
                    ["model"] => corolla
                )

            [3] => Array
                (
                    ["make"] => honda
                    ["model"] => civic
                )

        )

) --- Good luck :) Justin