Posting array from form

I have a form on my page with a bunch of inputs and some hidden fields, I've been asked to pass this data through a "post array" only im unsure on how to do this,

Heres a snippet of what im doing at the moment

<form enctype="multipart/form-data" action="process.php" method="POST"> 
...
more inputs
...

<!-- Hidden data -->
<input type="hidden" name="TimeToRenderHoursInput" value="<?php echo $RenderHours; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="TimeToRenderDaysInput" value="<?php echo $RenderDays; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="TimeToRenderYearsInput" value="<?php echo $RenderYears; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="ContentMinutesInput" value="<?php echo $ContentMinutes; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="ContentMinutesSelector" value="<?php echo $ContentMinutesSelector; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="PriorityInput" value="<?php echo $Priority; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="AvgFrameRenderTimeInput" value="<?php echo $AverageFrameRenderTime; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="AvgFrameRenderTimeSelector" value="<?php echo $AverageFrameRenderSelector; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="CoresInTestInput" value="<?php echo $CoresInTest; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="EstPriceInput" value="<?php echo $EstPrice; ?>" />
<!-- End hidden -->

<input type="image" src="http://www.venndigital.co.uk/testsite/renderbutton/_includes/images/button/submit.jpg" alt="Submit" value="Submit" style="border:0!important;" />

In my process.php im then calling the data as such...

$first_name = $_POST['first_name']; 
$company_name = $_POST['company_name']; 
$email_from = $_POST['email']; 
$address = $_POST['address']; 
$postcode = $_POST['postcode']; 
$RenderHours = $_POST['TimeToRenderHoursInput'];
$RenderDays = $_POST['TimeToRenderDaysInput'];
$RenderYears = $_POST['TimeToRenderYearsInput'];
$ContentMinutes = $_POST['ContentMinutesInput'];
$ContentMinutesSelector = $_POST['ContentMinutesSelector'];
$Priority = $_POST['PriorityInput'];
$AverageFrameRenderTime = $_POST['AvgFrameRenderTimeInput'];
$AverageFrameRenderSelector = $_POST['AvgFrameRenderTimeSelector'];
$CoresInTest = $_POST['CoresInTestInput'];
$EstPrice = $_POST['EstPriceInput'];

Is ther开发者_JS百科e a way to post it as an array? Is my method bad practice in anyway?

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Give each input a name in array format:

<input type="hidden" name="data[EstPriceInput]" value="" />

Then the in PHP $_POST['data']; will be an array:

  print_r($_POST);         // print out the whole post
  print_r($_POST['data']); // print out only the data array

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When you post that data, it is stored as an array in $_POST.

You could optionally do something like:

<input name="arrayname[item1]">
<input name="arrayname[item2]">
<input name="arrayname[item3]">

Then:

$item1 = $_POST['arrayname']['item1'];
$item2 = $_POST['arrayname']['item2'];
$item3 = $_POST['arrayname']['item3'];

But I fail to see the point.

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You're already doing that, as a matter of fact. When the form is submitted, the data is passed through a post array ($_POST). Your process.php is receiving that array and redistributing its values as individual variables.

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Why are you sending it through a post if you already have it on the server (PHP) side?

Why not just save the array to the $_SESSION variable so you can use it when the form gets submitted, that might make it more "secure" since then the client cannot change the variables by editing the source.

It will depend upon how you really want to do.

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You can use the built-in function:

extract($_POST);

it will create a variable for each entry in $_POST.

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What you are doing is not necessarily bad practice but it does however require an extraordinary amount of typing. I would accomplish what you are trying to do like this.

foreach($_POST as $var => $val){
    $$var = $val;
}

This will take all the POST variables and put them in their own individual variables. So if you have a input field named email and the luser puts in Someone@example.com you will have a var named $email with a value of "Someone@example.com".

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If you want everything in your post to be as $Variables you can use something like this:

foreach($_POST as $key => $value) { eval("$" . $key . " = " . $value"); }