How to post two values in an option field?

Question

I\'d like to post two values in one drop down option and I\'m not sure about the best way to approach it.

The drop down list pulls data in from an external service.

Answer 1

You cannot post two values unless both of them appear in the value attribute. You can place both in, separated by a comma or hyphen and explode() them apart in PHP:

// Place both values into the value attribute, separated by "-"
<option value="<?php echo $name['id'] . "-" . $name['name']);?>">
   <?php echo $name['name']);?>
</option>      

Receiving them in PHP

// split the contents of $_POST['data'] on a hyphen, returning at most two items
list($data_id, $data_name) = explode("-", $_POST['data'], 2);

echo "id: $data_id, name: $data_name";

Answer 2

You could make as many hidden inputs as there are options, each with the name of one option value. The input's values are the contents of the options. In the second script, you can look for the dropdown value, and then take the value of the hidden input with that name.

Answer 3

You may add a hidden field with the name "id" and then bind an onchange event listener to the <select>. inside the onchange function, get the value of the <select> and assign it to the "id" field.

<form>
<select name="name" onchange="document.getElementById('id').value=this.value">
  <!--
    ...
    options
    ...
  -->
</select>
<input type="hidden" name="id" id="id" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>

Answer 4

We can pass it with data attribute, and can access in js,

<option value="<?php echo $name['id']);?>" data-name="<?php echo $name['name']);?>">One</OPTION>

var name = $(this).find(':selected').data('name');

Answer 5

The only way to do this is to include both pieces of information in the value for the single option. Just use code like the following, and then when you get the value back, split the string at the first underscore to separate out the values.

<select name="data">
<option>Select a name</option>
<?php foreach($names as $name): ?>
    <option value="<?php echo $name['id'] . "_" . $name['name']);?>">
       <?php echo $name['name']);?>
    </option>               
<?php endforeach; ?>
</select>

Also, you could just leave the ID alone in your form, and then look up the id again when the user submits the form.

Answer 6

You could output something like:

<option value="<?php echo $name['id']."_".$name['name'];?>">

Then use preg_splitor explode to separate the two once the form data is processed.