Get values from select multiple and get them in to database

Question

What is the best way to get the all values of one multiple select box, and then i want to save those values in one row in the database, then from that row i want to get each value separate. What is the best way to do such a thing ? My goal is to save the values and then get each separate.

Answer 1

You could do it this way

<select name="foo[]" multiple="multiple">
     <option value="dog">Dog</option>
     <option value="cat">Cat</option>
     <option value="fish">Fish</option>
</select>

<?php

$pets = $_POST['foo'];

//sanitize and verify the input here. Escape properly and what not

$query = mysql_query("INSERT INTO `pets` (`pet1`, `pet2`, `pet3`) VALUES ('".$pets[0]."', '".$pets[1]."',  '".$pets[2]."')");
?>

But to be honest it's an awful way to go about building a database. It'll be very annoying or difficult to do anything meaningful with.

Why not have the following database setup:

users:

id | name 
----------
 1 | Tim

pets:

id | user_id | type
-------------------
1  | 1       | Fish
2  | 1       | Cat
3  | 4       | Kakapo

And then you would have a much more easily searchable and manipulatable database that's consistent.

Answer 2

I believe you should receive the value selected as an array in the $_POST variable so say your select has a name="products"

The values selected will be in $_POST["products"] assuming you are submitting the form via POST.

Then you can use the implode function to generate a string. For example:

$myProducts = implode("|", $_POST["products"]); //This will give you a pipeline delimeted string like : computer|laptop|monitor

$myProducts = mysql_real_escape_string($myProducts); //Just to santize before inserting in DB

Then just insert that string into the DB.

When retrieving the data you can reverse the process by using the explode function:

$myProducts = explode("|" , [The value retrieved from the database]); //This will give you an array which you can iterate and thus accessing the values individually.

Hope this helps :)