Combining two input arrays into a single array to input into a database with PHP

Question

I have a jQuery function that allows a user to create a list of links. By clicking on an "add row" link they create as many of these blocks (shown below) as they like which they can type the information into.

<div class="links_row">

    <input type="text" name="link_name[]">
    <input type="text" name="link_url[]">

</div>

I am posting this data to a PHP function to insert into a database which looks like this:

+---------------+
|id             |
+---------------+
|name           |
+---------------+
|url            |
+---------------+

I need to work out how to combine the two input arrays link_name[] and link_url[] and loop through the resulting single array, inserting each as a row in the database.

Answer 1

Combine. You mean like array_merge() combine?

If so, use that.

EDIT: On second thought, you might want array_combine(). It takes two arrays and returns one where one of the input arrays provides the keys and the other provides the values.

Answer 2

No, youre better off with an array map because the numbers would correlate. Check out:

http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-map.php

Answer 3

Probably not the cleanest way of doing this, but a quick loop should do it. I'm assuming you've validated and sanitized the form data and made sure the arrays are the same size.

$rows = array();

$num_results = count($_POST['link_name']);
for($i = 0; $i < $num_results;  $i++) {
    $rows[$i]['url'] = $_POST['link_url'][$i];
    $rows[$i]['name'] = $_POST['link_name'][$i];
}