php associative array and switch

Question

My associative array.

$money = array("Nickels" => $_POST["nickels"], "Dimes" => $_POST["dimes"], "Quarters" =>$_POST["quarters"]);

My html form set up to handle Quarters, Dimes and Nickels are not shown in this case for brevity.

<label><b>Quarters:</b></label>
<select name="quarters" >
<option value=".25">25c</option>
<option value=".50">50c</option>
<option value=".75">75c</option>
<option value="1">$1.00</option>
</select>

A user can only select either Quarters only, Dimes only, or Nickels only. If a user selects Quarters with the option value of .25, this value will be sent to the php script.

So I was just wondering for calculations based on the fact that the user can select Quarters only with one value, Dimes only with one value, and Nickels only with one value, and not a combination of denominations,

how would one go about setting up different test cases, for example if the user selects $money["Quarters"]; // With different values coming from the html form as .25, .50,.75, or 1, and only one of the selected values will make it through to the php script depending on what the user selected.

Can I do this:

switch($selection)
{
     case “Quarters”:
      echo “ You chose  $money[‘Quarters’];   .<br />”;
      break;
     case “Nickels”:
      echo “You chose $money[‘Nickels’]; .<br />”;
             break;
     case “Dimes”:
      echo “You chose  $money[‘Dimes’]; . <br />”;
                    break;
default: print  “Please select a Denomination”;
}

Thank you for not flaming the newb, I am still learning, and sorry for the mix and match in terms of " and “.

Answer 1

Selected values in a form are submitted as $_POST['quarters'].

I understand, that you want to check, if the user has selected more than one of your <select>s (correct?)

So, I'd create a check like this:

$selected = 0;

if ($_POST['quarters'] != "DEFAULT_VALUE_OF_YOU_SELECT_QUARTERS")
{
 $selected++;
}

if ($_POST['nickels'] != "DEFAULT_VALUE_OF_YOU_SELECT_NICKELS")
{
 $selected++;
}

if ($_POST['dimes'] != "DEFAULT_VALUE_OF_YOU_SELECT_DIMES")
{
 $selected++;
}

if ($selected > 1)
{
 // The user has selected more than one
}

Answer 2

There's a few things to pay attention to here.

So, first of all, your $money array captures every value the user submits.

Next, the way you have your HTML <select> statement set up, there's no default value. The first option in $_POST["quarters"] is going to be .25 even if the user never touches that pulldown. To avoid this, you would want to add to the Quarters <select>:

<option value="0">-- Select Quarters --</option>

But still this doesn't allow you to use a switch/case statement. You're still going to be submitting a value for EVERY HTML <select> tag. ApoY2k's solution is better, since it checks every pulldown, making sure they only used one, and perhaps displays a message if they don't.

Finally... I don't know what $selection refers to in your example. You're populating the $money array, so the $selection variable doesn't exist.

I can further help if you clarify your question.