Get the current array key inside foreach

Question

Ok so, I am building something for my employer for them to input products, they have very specific requirements. I have a form with dynamically generated fields like so... (obviously not the exact code to follow but the examples are identical conceptually)

<input type="text" name="attribute[20]"> inputted value = height
<input type="text" name="attribute[27]"> inputted value = width

the numbers are generated based on things in the database, so 20 would correlate to "width" 27 would correlate to "height" for example.

So once the user enters the values I need those values to go into a database...or in the test, echo out.

foreach ($_POST['attribute'] as $attributes){
echo key($attributes).' '.$attributes.'<br>';
}

So that should output...

20 height value<br>
27 width value

but instead it outputs

&nbsp;height value<br>
&nbsp;width value

What is going on? I have something similar...but slightly different as the defined numbers can have more than one input....which works perfectly.

<input type="text" name="option[][20]"> inputted value = option 1
<input type="text" name="option[][20]"> inputted value = option 2
<input type="text" name="option[][27]"> inputted value = option 1

foreach ($_POST['option'] as $options){
echo key($options).' ';
foreach ($options as $option){
echo $option.'<br>';
}

which outputs perfectly...

20 option 1<br>
20 option 2<br>
27 option 1

I don't understand why the more complex one works and the simpler one doesn't, am I missing something obvious? I am aware I have a somewhat unorthodox method of coding in comparison to some, but it is what it is lol. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Var dump as requested

array(22) { ["pID"]=> string(12) "test product" ["pPrice"]=> string(0) "" ["pName"]=> string(0) "" ["pRRP"]=> string(0) "" ["pPostSize"]=> string(0) "" ["pOurPrice"]=> string(0) "" ["pEstDelivery"]=> string(0) "" ["pWeight"]=> string(0) "" ["pEAN"]=> string(0) "" ["pOrder"]=> string(0) "" ["pStock"]=> string(0) "" ["pManufacturer"]=> string(0) "" ["pType"]=> string(13) "Shower Valves" ["pRange"]=> string(0) "" ["cat"]=> array(2) { [0]=> string(2) "72" [1]=> string(2) "23" } ["attribute"]=> array(2) { [0]=> string(5) "width" [1]=> string(6) "height" } ["option"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(1) { [11]=> string(6) "works1" } [1]=> array(1) { [10]=> string(6) "works1" } [2]=> array(1) { [10]=> string(6) "works2" } } ["pLongdescription"]=> string(0) "" ["meta_description"]=> string(0) "" ["meta_keyword"]=> string(0) "" ["meta_title"]=> string(0) "" ["action"]=> string(6) "create" }

the bold parts, are the parts that successfully come out in my second example. but the bold italic as you can see, returns 0 instead of the 20 that is actually in the form name value.

Answer 1

<input type="text" name="attribute[20]"> inputted value = height
<input type="text" name="attribute[27]"> inputted value = width

foreach ($_POST['attribute'] as $attributes){
    echo key($attributes).' '.$attributes.'<br>';
}

Note here that you are looping over the attribute array in post. $attributes is the value for each field (and is therefore not an array.

Instead of using key() try:

foreach ($_POST['attribute'] as $attributeKey => $attributes){
    echo $attributeKey.' '.$attributes.'<br>';
}