No POST data when creating dynamic form elements

Question

First off, I'm no developer so this kind of stuff is a little out of my comfort zone.

I'm trying to figure out why I'm not getting any post data when a form is submitted. I'm using a little javascript via a button, to create dynamic form elements and submitting them.

I have the following html snippet:

       <form id="admin_approvals" method="post" action="process_request.php">
              <table>
              <tr><th>Task</th><th>Status</th><th colspan="3">Action</th></tr>
             <tr>
                <td>New phone purchase</td>
                <td>WAITING APPROVAL</td>
                <td><button type="button" id="approve" onclick="actionRequest('APPROVE',94)">APPROVE</button></td>
                <td><button type="button" id="reject" onClick="actionRequest('REJECT',94)">REJECT</button></td>
                <td><button type="button" id="delete" onClick="actionRequest('DELETE',94)">DELETE</button></td>
             </tr> 
            </table>
        </form>

The javascript looks like this:

function actionRequest(keyword,task_id) {

    var input = document.createElement("input");
    input.setAttribute("type", "hidden");
    input.setAttribute("action",keyword);
    input.setAttribute("task",task_id);

    document.getElementById("admin_approvals").appendChild(input);
    document.getElementById("admin_approvals").submit();
}

And the php just does this for debugging purposes:

print_r($_POST);

All I'm seeing after clicking the button is a blank array:

Array( )

I've tried debugging by using getAttribute in the Javascript, and the values are being set. It's just that it looks like no data is being POST'ed.

Answer 1

Problem

The problem is not that the input is appended or created dynamically. The real problem is that your input has no name attribute.

Solution

To fix it, simply set a name attribute in your JavaScript.

input.setAttribute("name", "test");

Source

Both GET and POST create an array (eg array( key => value, key2 => value2, key3 => value3, ...)). This array holds key/value pairs, where keys are the names of the form controls and values are the input data from the user.

http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_forms.asp