Remembering multiple selections

[maude]

Hi there,

I have a very simple problem that I'm struggling with... I am trying to use hidden fields to remember user choices from a select list. I must not be getting something, because my code prints the 2nd to last choice the user made, whereas I want to print ALL choices the user has made:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use CGI qw(:standard);
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

print header;
print start_html("colors");

print "<form action='colors.pl' method='POST'>";
print "<select name='color'>";
print "<option value='red'> Red";
print "<option value='green'> Green";
print "<option value='blue'> Blue";
print "<option value='gold'> Gold";
print "</select>";

@color = param('color');
foreach $color (@color) {print "<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor'

value='$color'>";}

print "<input type='submit'>";

print "</form>";

@hiddencolors = param('hiddencolor');

print "@hiddencolors";

print end_html;

[jthayne]

The problem is that you end up with several hidden fields with the same name (see below)

<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor' value='$color'>

Each time you create a new one, it overwrites the previous. To explain it differently, imagine the confusion if you walked into a room filled with young mothers and their children and simply yelled the word 'Mom'. No one would know what to do. HTML would have the same issue if it did not take just the last value to pass on.

To resolve your issue, there are a couple options available.

First, create and array of values. You can do this by adding brackets to the end of the name:

<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor[]' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor[]' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor[]' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor[]' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor[]' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor[]' value='$color'>
<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor[]' value='$color'>

Second, you can create a unique value for the field name by tacking a number on to the end. (The syntax may not be completely accurate as I am primarily a PHP programmer, but the principle is the same)

$x=1;
@color = param('color');
foreach $color (@color) {
    print "<input type='hidden' name='hiddencolor$x' value='$color'>";
    $x++;
}