Is it possible to know the type of a html input with php?

Question

I need to check the type of the different inputs I have in a form.

I need to know if the field xxx is a checkbox, radio, select, etc.

Is it possible?

Thanks!

• César -

Answer 1

Assuming you mean after submitting the form, then no, only the parameter name and value are sent to the server. You could be a little clever with your naming to identify them server-side. At the server, you can then iterate over the request variables and parse chk from the name. For example:

HTML

<input type="checkbox" name="chkMyCheck" value="1" />

PHP

foreach ($_GET as $key => $value) {
    if (substr($key, 0, 3) == "chk")
        echo 'Checkbox '.$key.' submitted with value '.$value;
}

It makes it harder to get the variables at the server, though, if you don't know the type beforehand.

Answer 2

Yes, you can use an HTML parser and fetch the input element's type attribute.

$html = <<< HTML
<form>
    <input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
    <input type="hidden" value="1234"/>
    <input type="text" value="some text" id="xxx"/>
</form>
HTML;

// fetch with
$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadHTML($html); // use loadHTMLFile to load from file or URL
echo $dom->getElementById('xxx')->getAttribute('type');

will output "text".

There is plenty of examples on SO that cover fetching different parts. Just give it a search.

Answer 3

The only data types that reach PHP are strings and arrays, so it's not possible to do that directly.

The way I see it you only have two options:

1. Use Hungarian-like notation, or
2. Parse the form DOM with SimpleXML or similar