Form with variable number of fields

PHP
1

I was thinking, what is the best way to manage a form with a variable number of fields?

Suppose you have the fields “phone1”, “phone2” and “phone3”, how can I insert the data into a database, not knowing how many fields I need to insert before the form gets submitted?

2

Question: Do you need to be able to search on said data?

3

In which sense?

If I understood what you meant then no, data would just be inserted in a database table.

4

per your example, rather than phone1, phone2 etc, create them as an array phone. then you can loop thru then when processing

5

You mean that the field name should be “phone”?


<input type="text" name="phone[]" />
<input type="text" name="phone[]" />
<input type="text" name="phone[]" />
6

Which then returns all phones in an array ($_POST[‘phone’][0], etc). You could save them in a single database field by imploding them on an unused character (something other than a number) after sanitizing them.

7

Could you please explain the section in bold?

8

imploding the entries of the array makes it a single string with a given delimiter. single string = single field, no matter how many phone numbers there are.

9

Ok, thanks :slight_smile: