Automate processing form data

Is there a way to automate (or at least automate some of the process) of extracting data from forms that is stored in the $_POST or $_GET superglobals?

I know you can iterate through the array with a foreach loop and other kinds of loops to do something with each key/value pair, but there are many times where I have other code that needs that data but just won't work when inside a foreach loop at all.

EDIT: Here's an example I can think of. Say I have a whole bunch of posted data and want to insert it into a database. As far as I can see, doing something like this isn't possible since I'd need to insert a value into a different column on each loop through:

foreach($array as $key => $value) {
mysql_query(INSERT INTO table (somecolumn) VALUES($value);
}

Also, another thing I'd really like to do is take all of the values from the posted data and assign each of them to a variable somehow; kind of like what extract() does but without the issue of overwriting other variables. The only thing I can think of to handle this is to somehow put the data into an array, but I'm not sure if this much much more efficient:

$data = array();
foreach($array as $key => $value) {
$data[$key] = $value;
}

One last case I can think of is when I have to use this data outside of the foreach loop. If I modify my code to have it so that everything is executed inside of the foreach loop, then I am restricted to keeping everything that has to do with the form data inside of the loop. 开发者_如何学CIf variables and/or constants are defined inside of a loop, they can't be accessed outside of it, correct? I have been working with Java a lot lately and am used to the more strict scope and strict way of handling variables :)

I've been reading about the extract() method a bit, but it looks like a bit of a dangerous thing to use (overwriting variables, security holes, etc).

For anyone else that processes large amounts of data (lets say 25+ form fields), how do you do it? I'm tired of assigning variables like $data = $_POST['somedata'] over and over to use them elsewhere...

Thanks!

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I know you can iterate through the array with a foreach loop and other kinds of loops to do something with each key/value pair, but there are many times where I have other code that needs that data but just won't work when inside a foreach loop at all.

Do you have an example of such cases?

I've been reading about the extract() method a bit, but it looks like a bit of a dangerous thing to use (overwriting variables, security holes, etc).

Yes, do not use that. This was actually used quite a lot in previous versions of PHP, and it caused lots of security issues.

For anyone else that processes large amounts of data (lets say 25+ form fields), how do you do it? I'm tired of assigning variables like $data = $_POST['somedata'] over and over to use them elsewhere...

I generally split lots of form fields into similar functional groups (names, numbers, dates, etc.) and deal with them that way. To be honest I have more of an issue with non-checked data going in my database then with checking lots of form fields.

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Get things teed up. In your html form, and your database if you have an element 'email' then make sure that matches up with your table, ie don't have a db table called 'user_email'.

Isolate those items you simply HAVE to validate, check them, add them back to the $_POST array - or fail or abort accordingly.

$_POST['web'] = {do your cleansing here, add any missing http:// kinda thing}

Remove any submit button cruft which may have made its way into your $_POST array.

unset($_POST['submitMe']);

Then do the equivalent of:

$db->saveNew($_POST);

Where $db is a slight layer lying over PDO which automatically and without fail uses Prepared Statements to escape and protect your database.

You could have your $db class pick up an ini file which determines which kind of variable each of your tables expects if you wanted.