Getting checkbox values on submit

Question

I have 6 options, I want to get the checked values to store them in variable on second page. How do I go on doing that?

<form action="third.php" method="get">
    <!-- Choices -->
    Red     <input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Red">
    Green   <input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Green">
    Blue    <input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Blue">
    Cyan    <input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Cyan">
    Magenta <input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Magenta">
    Yellow  <input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Yellow">
    Black   <input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Black">
    <!-- Submit -->
    <input type="submit" value="submit">
</form>

And third.php page :

$color = $_GET['color'];

echo 'The color is '.$color;

If I remove [], I get the color is on, when I do it like color[] I get a notice saying :

Array to string conversion

What I want is the value of checked, checkboxes so I can store it in variable.

Answer 1

Just for printing you can use as below :

print_r($_GET['color']);

or

var_dump($_GET['color']);

Answer 2

A good method which is a favorite of mine and for many I'm sure, is to make use of foreach which will output each color you chose, and appear on screen one underneath each other.

When it comes to using checkboxes, you kind of do not have a choice but to use foreach, and that's why you only get one value returned from your array.

Here is an example using $_GET. You can however use $_POST and would need to make both directives match in both files in order to work properly.

HTML FORM

<form action="third.php" method="get">
    Red<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="red">
    Green<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="green">
    Blue<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="blue">
    Cyan<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="cyan">
    Magenta<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Magenta">
    Yellow<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="yellow">
    Black<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="black">
    <input type="submit" value="submit">
</form>

PHP (using $_GET) using third.php as your handler

<?php

$name = $_GET['color'];

// optional
// echo "You chose the following color(s): <br>";

foreach ($name as $color){ 
    echo $color."<br />";
}

?>

Assuming having chosen red, green, blue and cyan as colors, will appear like this:

red
green
blue
cyan

---

OPTION #2

You can also check if a color was chosen. If none are chosen, then a seperate message will appear.

<?php

$name = $_GET['color'];

if (isset($_GET['color'])) {
    echo "You chose the following color(s): <br>";

    foreach ($name as $color){
        echo $color."<br />";
    }
} else {
    echo "You did not choose a color.";
}

?>

---

Additional options:

To appear as a list: (<ul></ul> can be replaced by <ol></ol>)

<?php

$name = $_GET['color'];

if (isset($_GET['color'])) {
    echo "You chose the following color(s): <br>";
    echo "<ul>";
    foreach ($name as $color){
        echo "<li>" .$color."</li>";
    }
    echo "</ul>";
} else {
    echo "You did not choose a color.";
}

?>

---

Flag: (August the 5th, 2016)

I've received 2 downvotes this morning and my comments we're removed; why? Whoever's doing this, is obvioulsy doing this with malice. The answer has received nothing but upvotes and now this. I mean seriously; wtf? – Fred -ii- 1 hour ago declined - People are free to vote how they want, as long as you're not being targeted. I see no evidence of that. Your comments about votes were noise, flagged as such, and removed.

Answer to this: That's just the thing; I am.

Answer 3

(It's not action="get" or action="post" it's method="get" or method="post"

Try to do it using post method:

<form action="third.php" method="POST">
    Red<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="red">
    Green<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="green">
    Blue<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="blue">
    Cyan<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="cyan">
    Magenta<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="Magenta">
    Yellow<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="yellow">
    Black<input type="checkbox" name="color[]" id="color" value="black">
    <input type="submit" value="submit">
</form>

and in third.php

or for a pericular field you colud get value in:

$_POST['color'][0] //for RED
$_POST['color'][1] // for GREEN

Answer 4

Perhaps a better way is using the php function in_array() like this:

$style='V';//can be 'V'ertical or 'H'orizontal
$lineBreak=($style=='V')?'<br>':'';
$name='colors';//the name of your options
$Legent="Select your $name";//dress it up in a nice fieldset with a ledgent
$options=array('red','green','blue','orange','yellow','white','black');
$boxes='';//innitiate the list of tickboxes to be generated
if(isset($_REQUEST["$name"])){ 
//we shall use $_REQUEST but $_POST would be better
   $Checked=$_REQUEST["$name"];
}else{
   $Checked=array();
}
foreach($options as $option){
$checkmark=(in_array($option,$Checked))?'checked':'';
$nameAsArray=$name.'[]';//we would like the returned data to be in an array so we end with []
$boxes.=($style=='V')?"<span class='label2' align='right'><b>$option : </b></span>":"<b>$option </b>";
$boxes.="<input style='width:2em;' type='checkbox' name='$nameAsArray' id='$option' value='$option' $checkmark >$lineBreak";
}

echo<<<EOF
<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<form name="Update" method="GET" action="{$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']}">\n
<fieldset id="tickboxes" style="width:25em;">
<legend>{$Legent}</legend>
{$boxes}
</fieldset>
<button type="submit" >Submit Form</button>
</form>
<body>
</html>
EOF
;

To start with we have created a variable $style to set if we want the options in a horizontal or vertical way. This will infrequence how we display our checkboxes. Next we set the $name for our options, this is needed as a name of the array where we want to keep our options. I have created a loop here to construct each option as given in the array $options, then we check each item if it should be checked in our returned form. I believe this should simplify the way we can reproduce a form with checkboxes.