Is there a way to pass a php variable to another page using a button (html/php)?

Question

For example, say you have a loop that produces a button every time it loops. So if the loop ran five times, there would be 5 buttons. Now say i have a variable like $num which will change each time the loop loops. Is there a way so that each button will pass its individual $num when the button is clicked?

$num = 0;
while(...){
    //want this to send $num via POST or GET to xyz.php
    echo '<button type="submit" value="3" name="editId">Remove</button>';
    $num++;//$num changes every instance of the loop
}

Answer 1

The easiest way is to create a <form> surrounding each of the <button> tags:

$num = 0;
while(...){
    //want this to send $num via POST or GET to xyz.php
    echo '<form method="post" action="xyz.php">';
    // Pass $num into the form value
    echo '<button type="submit" value="' . $num. '" name="editId">Remove</button>';
    echo '</form>'
    $num++;
}

Whichever is clicked will be passed to xyz.php as $_POST['editId'].

While this method creates a different form for each button, there are other ways to do it using JavaScript which would use a single form and assign the value to a hidden input based on the button clicked. If it's only the one input value being sent, the multiple <form>s option is probably easiest to code.

Answer 2

The button's name & value should be submitted with the form.

For example:

<?php print_r($_POST); ?>

<form action="" method="post">
    <button type="submit" name="button" value="value">Button</button>
</form>

When the button "Button" is clicked, the form will be submitted and

Array ( [button] => value ) 

Will be output above the form.

Applying this to your situation, one could use something like:

$num = 0;
while(...){
    // Set $num as the value of each button
    echo "<button type='submit' value='{$num}' name='editId'>Remove</button>";
    $num++;//$num changes every instance of the loop
}