Adding Table Cell Contents to PHP $_POST

Question

From my understanding, the only way to retrieve $_POST data is using the name attribute of the element, like so:

<INPUT type="text" name="txt">

and the PHP portion:

<?php $text = $_POST["txt"]; ?>

I've got a table with cells containing plain text, for example:

<td class="textField" id="txt1"> Some text </td>

Is there anyway to post the text in these table cells and retrieve them using either the class or id? Maybe there is a clever way to get around this? <td> doesn't have a name attribute thus the reason for my question.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use ajax, getting values from the table with javascript. JQuery is a good library for this:

http://api.jquery.com/category/ajax/

Answer 2

$_POST and $_GET come from the request. Meaning the browser sends them with the headers and PHP provides an interface to them with $_POST , $_GET , $_COOKIE , and $_REQUEST . The browser doesn't send contents of a table in the request.

If you're trying to make a field 'read-only' you're going about it the wrong way. If a field is read-only you should never trust the browser to re-send that same value.

Answer 3

To retrieve values from many form-fields who all have the same name (because you generate them with a loop in PHP), append brackets to the names of your fields.
Simple example:

<form method="post">
<input type=text name="myfield[]">  
<input type=text name="myfield[]">  
<input type=text name="myfield[]">  
<input type=text name="myfield[]">  
</form>

If you add to your code:

<?php print_r($_POST); ?>  

you'll notice that the $_POST variable is populated with an array named "myfield" having 4 values from $_POST['myfield'][0] to $_POST['myfield'][3]. You may then use a foreach loop in PHP to retrieve all values.

Answer 4

The solution that ended up working for me was to grab the data using jQuery, encode it in JSON, and add it to a serial array of the rest of the form data.

$("#orderForm").submit(function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();

    // Get NON-INPUT table cell data
    var subtotal = new Array();
    $('#priceTable td.subtotal').each(function() {
        subtotal.push($(this).html());
    });

    // Get all INPUT form data and organize as array
    var formData = $(this).serializeArray();

    // Encode with JSON
    var subArray = JSON.stringify(subtotal);

    // Add to formData array
    formData.push({name: 'sub', value: subArray});

    // Submit with AJAX
    $.ajax({
        url: "submitOrder.php",
        data: formData,
        type: 'post',
        success: function(data) {
            alert(data);
        }
    });
});

And on the PHP side:

$subtotals = json_decode($_POST['sub']);