Re: Comparing string to array

Richard Davey wrote:

Hi all, Ok it's 2am, my brain has gone to mush and I am having trouble figuring out an easy way to do this, can anyone shed some light? Take a peek at the following code: // START <pre> <?php

    print_r($_POST);
        $userparam = "test['sam'][]";

    //  How to check if $userparam exists in the $_POST array
    //  and get all the values from it?
        //  Obviously this won't work, but you get the idea:
    if (isset($_POST[$userparam]))
    {
        echo 'yeah';
        $values = $_POST[$userparam];
    }
    else
    {
        echo 'nah';
    }

?> </pre> <form method="post"> <input type="checkbox" name="test['bob'][]" value="red">red<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test['bob'][]" value="green">green<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test['bob'][]" value="blue">blue<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test['sam'][]" value="red2">red2<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test['sam'][]" value="green2">green2<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test['sam'][]" value="blue2">blue2<br> <input type="submit"> </form> // END From the code above I'm trying to figure out how to tell if the $userparam exists in the $_POST array. PHP automatically expands the form element name into multi-dim arrays within $_POST, so a simple 'isset' as shown in the code above won't play because it's got a totally useless array key passed to it. I need a way to turn the string: "test['sam'][]" into something I can look into $_POST for. Any ideas? The coffee boost is wearing off, but I want to get this licked tonight :-\ Cheers, Rich taking a step back and looking a little closer at the problem. I have come up with this

Which does not require eval() Maybe this will work for the OP <pre> <?php $param = 'test[sam][colors][]'; function find_within_array($string, $source) { $data = array(); $tmp = $source; if ( preg_match_all('/(\[?([\w]+)\]?)/', $string, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER) ) { if ( count($matches) > 1 ) { for ( $i = 0; $i<count($matches); $i++ ) { if ( isset($tmp[$matches[$i][2]]) ) { if ( is_array($tmp[$matches[$i][2]]) ) { foreach ($tmp[$matches[$i][2]] AS $value ) { if ( is_string($value) ) { $data[] = $value; } } } $tmp = $tmp[$matches[$i][2]]; } } return $data; } } return array(); } $results = find_within_array($param, $_POST); if ( count($results) > 0 ) { echo "yeah\n"; echo join(':', $results); } else { echo 'nah'; } ?> </pre> <form method="post"> <input type="checkbox" name="test[bob][colors][]" value="red">red<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test[bob][colors][]" value="green">green<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test[bob][colors][]" value="blue">blue<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test[sam][colors][]" value="red">red<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test[sam][colors][]" value="green">green<br> <input type="checkbox" name="test[sam][colors][]" value="blue">blue<br> <input type="submit"> </form> -- Jim Lucas "Some men are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene V by William Shakespeare