PHP: Possible to automatically get all POSTed data?

Question

Simple question: Is it possible to get all the data POSTed to a page, even if you don't know all the fields?

For example, I want to write a simple script that collects any POSTed data and emails it. I can foresee that the fields in the form are likely to change a lot over time, and so to save myself some time in the long run, I was wondering if I could write something that automatically gathered everything?

Is it possible?

ofcourse just use the global arrays $_POST, $_GET, $_Ser..... — Khurram Ijaz, Jun 13 '11 at 18:54
possible duplicate of [How to grab all variables in a post (PHP)](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3058336/how-to-grab-all-variables-in-a-post-php) — mario, Jun 13 '11 at 19:06

score 127 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 11 '18 at 15:42

127

Sure. Just walk through the $_POST array:

foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {
    echo "Field ".htmlspecialchars($key)." is ".htmlspecialchars($value)."<br>";
}

edited Jul 11 '18 at 15:42

Mathieu Turcotte

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answered Jun 13 '11 at 18:54

Pekka

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@Django Reinhardt Note that non-checked checkboxes do not appear in the `$_POST` array so if you use checkboxes, you will need to handle them differently by using `isset` for example. – jeroen Jun 13 '11 at 19:47
what if there is a file , will it come with it – bhawin Oct 15 '13 at 08:38
Can the same be used for $_GET? – Kaspar L. Palgi Jul 03 '19 at 11:43

Roman Newaza · Answer 2 · 2012-09-27T10:03:41.577

No one mentioned Raw Post Data, but it's good to know, if posted data has no key, but only value, use Raw Post Data:

$postdata = file_get_contents("php://input");

PHP Man:

php://input is a read-only stream that allows you to read raw data from the request body. In the case of POST requests, it is preferable to use php://input instead of $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA as it does not depend on special php.ini directives. Moreover, for those cases where $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA is not populated by default, it is a potentially less memory intensive alternative to activating always_populate_raw_post_data. php://input is not available with enctype="multipart/form-data".

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 13 '11 at 19:55

8

Yes you can use simply

     $input_data = $_POST;

or extract() may be useful for you.

edited Jun 13 '11 at 19:55

answered Jun 13 '11 at 18:56

xkeshav

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`extract($_POST)` will mimic `register_globals`. Don't do that. – netcoder Jun 13 '11 at 19:02
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@netcoder; i just suggest him that it can be useful; it is an option too. and will u please give me an example to make ur comments valuable. – xkeshav Jun 13 '11 at 19:13
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Using `extract` on an unfiltered/unsanitized user supplied data is super, super bad idea. Do yourself a favor and don't bake insecurity into your code. – mickmackusa Jan 15 '19 at 23:46

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 13 '11 at 19:39

5

All posted data will be in the $_POST superglobal.

http://php.net/manual/reserved.variables.post.php

edited Jun 13 '11 at 19:39

answered Jun 13 '11 at 18:54

George Cummins

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score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 13 '11 at 18:57

4

As long as you don't want any special formatting: yes.

foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) 
    $body .= $key . ' -> ' . $value . '<br>';

Obviously, more formatting would be necessary, however that's the "easy" way. Unless I misunderstood the question.

You could also do something like this (and if you like the format, it's certainly easier):

$body = print_r($_POST, true);

answered Jun 13 '11 at 18:57

Tickthokk

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+1 The latter suggestion (`$body = print_r($_POST, true);`) worked for me as the simplest without having to iterate through child elements. I just needed to see the raw POST content temporarily while developing a webhook application. – SteveCinq Feb 05 '20 at 01:47

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 13 '11 at 19:54

2

You can retrieve all the keys of the $_POST array using array_keys(), then construct an email messages with the values of those keys.

var_dump($_POST) will also dump information about all of the information in $_POST for you.

edited Jun 13 '11 at 19:54

answered Jun 13 '11 at 18:55

barfoon

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 13 '11 at 18:58

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You can use $_REQUEST as well as $_POST to reach everything such as Post, Get and Cookie data.

answered Jun 13 '11 at 18:58

Tarik

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score 1 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 13 '11 at 19:05

1

To add to the others, var_export might be handy too:

$email_text = var_export($_POST, true);

edited Jun 13 '11 at 19:05

netcoder

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answered Jun 13 '11 at 19:00

searlea

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Abdul Raheem Dumrai · Answer 9 · 2022-10-25T15:28:34.540

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Just to echo all data of $_POST.

echo json_encode($_POST);

You can also do this for more better viewing.

echo var_dump($_POST);

edited Oct 25 '22 at 15:28

answered Sep 24 '22 at 18:33

Abdul Raheem Dumrai

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PHP: Possible to automatically get all POSTed data?

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