Insert all HTML form fields (filled and empty) to array php

Question

I have a large HTML form where I currently insert filled html fields into and array. When I print out my $_POST['rep_list']; it gives me the keys and values filled out from the form. But what I need is an array with all form fields ( even the ones not filled out ).

Any suggestion/examples on how to achieve this?

    <form action="insert-data.php" name="workCard" method="POST">
    <fieldset>
    <legend><h3>Repair</h3></legend>
    <table>
      <tr>
        <th>Description</th>
        <th>Front</th>
        <th>Back</th>       
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>tire</td>
        <td><input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[tire_front]" value="tire_front" /></td>
        <td><input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[tire_back]" value="tire_back" /></td>
        <td>alm <input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[tire_reg]" value="tire_reg" /></td>
        <td>indl <input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[tire_indl]" value="tire_indl" /></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Tube</td>
        <td><input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[tube_front]" value="tube_front" /></td>
        <td><input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[tube_back]" value="tube_back" /></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Hub.rep.</td>
        <td><input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[hub_front]" value="hub_front" /></td>
        <td><input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[hub_back]" value="hub_back" /></td>
        <td>just. <input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[hub_adjust]" value="hub_adjust" /></td>
 etc…....

Answer 1

If you want to do this without javascript you can create text input's for all checkboxes. For example:

<td>
    <input type="hidden" name="rep_list[tire_front]" value="False" />
    <input type="checkbox" name="rep_list[tire_front]" value="True" />
</td>

When you check the POST in PHP you can determine if a checkbox is checked or not by checking the value .When the POST value is True the checkbox was checked and False is unchecked.

Answer 2

With checkboxes if they are ticked they will be set in the HTTP post with their given value (or default of 'on' if a value is not set). If they are not ticked no value will be sent.

To check if a checkbox was ticked in PHP you could simply check if a POST value was set:

$tire_front = isset($_POST['rep_list']['tire_front']);

If you wanted to do this for every item you could create an array of the keys and loop through each of these:

$fields = array(
    'tire_front',
    'tire_back',
    'tire_reg',
    'tire_indl',
    'tube_front',
    'tube_back',
    'hub_front',
    'hub_back',
    'hub_adjust'
);

foreach ($fields as $field) {
    $rep_list[$field] = isset($_POST['rep_list'][$field]);
}

$rep_list would then contain an entry for each of the fields with a value of true if ticked, or false if not.