Currently I'm working on a large form with dynamic number of input fields, it can get extremely large (above 3k variables or more) and it causes problems with 'max_input_vars' option. I'm looking for a workaround for this issue (I'm not interested in increasing the value of 'max_input_vars' option), so currently I'm trying to join all form fields values into single field (using jQuery serialize() method) and then recreate the variables on the server side. This is what I have so far:
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Workaround for max_input_vars</title>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<?php
if($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"]==="POST" && !empty($_POST["data"])) {
$vars = explode("&", $_POST["data"]);
$data = array();
foreach($vars as $var) {
parse_str($var, $variable);
assign_var($_POST, $variable);
}
echo "<pre>";
var_dump($_POST);
echo "</pre>";
}
function assign_var(&$target, $var) {
$key = key($var);
if(is_array($var[$key]))
assign_var($target[$key], $var[$key]);
else {
if($key==0)
$target[] = $var[$key];
else
$target[$key] = $var[$key];
}
}
?>
<form id="myForm" method="POST">
<input type="text" name="var_1" value="<?php echo htmlentities("double quote: \"hello\"");?>"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="var_2" value="<?php echo htmlentities("single quote: 'hello'");?>"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="var_3" value="<?php echo htmlentities("text with & ampersant");?>"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="var_4" value="<?php echo htmlentities("animals");?>"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="matrix[]" value="1"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="matrix[]" value="2"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="matrix[]" value="3"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="matrix[]" value="4"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="matrix[]" value="5"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="matrix[]" value="6"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="matrix[]" value="7"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="var_5" value="abc"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="var_6" value="bcd"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="var_7" value="cde"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="var_8" value="def"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="multi_matrix[colors][]" value="red"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="multi_matrix[colors][]" value="blue"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="multi_matrix[colors][]" value="green"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="multi_matrix[weight][]" value="75"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="multi_matrix[weight][]" value="83"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="multi_matrix[weight][]" value="62"/><br/>
<input type="text" name="multi_matrix[height][]" value="170"/><br/>
<input type="submit" value="Send">
</form>
<style>
input {
margin: 5px 0;
}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(){
$(function(){
$("#myForm").submit(function(event) {
var $this = $(this);
var data = $this.serialize();
$this.find("input, textarea, select, button").remove();
$this.append("<input type='hidden' class='data' name='data'/>");
$this.find("input.data").val(data);
});
});
})(jQuery);
</script>
</body>
</html>
As you can see, I'm intercepting the submit event and replace all form fields with single 'data' field. On PHP side I'm using explode() and pars_str() methods to recreate the variable, lastly I want to put the variable into $_POST array, so I created simple recursive function that can handle simple values and multidimensional associative arrays. The result is a $_POST array filled with form values, as if the form was submitted normally.
What do you think about above method ? Maybe there's a much simpler solution to the problem that I hadn't noticed earlier ? If not, are there any options to improve the above code ? Are there any negative side effects of the above solution ?
Thanks in advance !
