How to get PHP $_GET array?

Question

Is it possible to have a value in $_GET as an array?

If I am trying to send a link with http://link/foo.php?id=1&id=2&id=3, and I want to use $_GET['id'] on the php side, how can that value be an array? Because right now echo $_GET['id'] is returning 3. Its the last id which is in the header link. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

The usual way to do this in PHP is to put id[] in your URL instead of just id:

http://link/foo.php?id[]=1&id[]=2&id[]=3 

Then $_GET['id'] will be an array of those values. It's not especially pretty, but it works out of the box.

Answer 2

You could make id a series of comma-seperated values, like this:

index.php?id=1,2,3&name=john

Then, within your PHP code, explode it into an array:

$values = explode(",", $_GET["id"]); print count($values) . " values passed."; 

This will maintain brevity. The other (more commonly used with $_POST) method is to use array-style square-brackets:

index.php?id[]=1&id[]=2&id[]=3&name=john

But that clearly would be much more verbose.