Why would an html text input name cause a submit input not to set?

Question

I have an html form, with 13 <input> fields and approx. 92 different rows, created using php which pulls the records from a mySQL database. For some reason when I have a name assigned to this one field, it causes my <input type="submit" name="update_submit"> button not to set. If I change the name, it doesn't matter, but if I remove the name it will allow the other fields to update just fine.

Here is a snippet of my form code( $i is auto incremented):

Up Top...

<form method="post" action="process_form.php">
<table>
<tr>

Further down...

echo "<td align=\"center\" class=\"edit_emp_comp_exp_cell\"><input type=\"text\" maxlength=\"10\" size=\"10\" id=\"Lic_Comp_Exp$i\" name=\"Lic_Comp_Exp[]\" value=\"" . $emp_query['Lic_Comp_Exp'] . "\">";

<input type="submit" name="update_submit" style="width:100px;" value="UPDATE">

Further down...

</tr>
</table>
</form>

Here is my process_form:

if(isset($_POST['update_submit']))
{
$id = $_POST['Emp_ID'];
$name = $_POST['Emp_Name'];
$phone = $_POST['Emp_Phone'];
$start = $_POST['Start_Date'];
$leave = $_POST['Paid_Leave'];
$aca = $_POST['Emp_ACA'];
$licauth = $_POST['Lic_Auth_ID'];
$authexp = $_POST['Lic_Auth_Exp'];
$liccomp = $_POST['Lic_Comp_ID'];
$compexp = $_POST['Lic_Comp_Exp'];
$miscp  = $_POST['MiscP_ID'];
$position = $_POST['Pos_ID'];
$active = $_POST['activeBox'];
$i = 0;

foreach($id as $update) 
        {
        if (!isset($active[$i])) { $active[$i] = 0; }
        $sql = ("UPDATE employee SET Emp_Name = '$name[$i]', Emp_Phone = '$phone[$i]', Emp_Start_Date = '$start[$i]', Paid_Leave = '$leave[$i]', Emp_ACA = '$aca[$i]', Lic_Auth_ID = '$licauth[$i]', Lic_Auth_Exp = '$authexp[$i]', Lic_Comp_ID = '$liccomp[$i]', Lic_Comp_Exp = '$compexp[$i]', MiscP_ID = '$miscp[$i]', Pos_ID = '$position[$i]', Emp_Active = '$active[$i]' WHERE Emp_ID = '$update'");

        echo "SQL: " . $sql . "<br>";

        if(!$result_employee_update = $mysqli->query($sql))
            {
            $errors[] = "There was an error updating the employee table. MySqli Error Number: " . $mysqli->errno . "";
            goto end;
            }
        $i++;
        }
goto redirect;
}

I am at a total loss and have been troubleshooting this all morning, I would really appreciate some help.

UPDATE: When I change if(isset($_POST['update_submit'])) to if(!isset($_POST['update_submit'])) and run it, I get an error:

"Notice: Undefined offset: 83 ... on line 31"

and line 31 is my

`$sql = ("UPDATE employee SET Emp_Name = '$name[$i]', Emp_Phone = '$phone[$i]', Emp_Start_Date = '$start[$i]', Paid_Leave = '$leave[$i]', Emp_ACA = '$aca[$i]', Lic_Auth_ID = '$licauth[$i]', Lic_Auth_Exp = '$authexp[$i]', Lic_Comp_ID = '$liccomp[$i]', Lic_Comp_Exp = '$compexp[$i]', MiscP_ID = '$miscp[$i]', Pos_ID = '$position[$i]', Emp_Active = '$active[$i]' WHERE Emp_ID = '$update'");`

I think that means that one of my <input> is not an array, right? If that is so, I don't know how that can be, the table is there and its created dynamically from the database.

UPDATE2: I think I've got something figured out, but I don't know how to fix it. I tried leaving the name="Lic_Auth_Exp" and name="Lic_Comp_Exp" and then removing two different name attributes from other input fields. After doing that it seemed to run the code. So the problem isn't because of these specific fields, but it seems to be because of there being more than 11 $_POST values being passed. I looked through the php.ini file to see if there were any limits on such a thing, but I didn't see anything. Does anyone know what could be causing this??

Are you getting any error while rendering the table or input elements when you mention the name attribute? — Angel
– Angel, Commented Jan 3, 2013 at 8:43
@Angel No, I just checked "view page source" in firefox and there are no errors showing. Good idea though, something I didn't think of. — Andrew Fox
– Andrew Fox, Commented Jan 3, 2013 at 8:56
Can you add firebug for firefox and check if there are any errors that are thrown? — Angel
– Angel, Commented Jan 3, 2013 at 9:03
I do have firebug installed, haven't used it much, but under the console it doesn't show any errors. — Andrew Fox
– Andrew Fox, Commented Jan 3, 2013 at 9:26
Your button doesn't show up or work when you have the name attribute specified otherwise it shows up. Am I correct? — Angel
– Angel, Commented Jan 3, 2013 at 9:30

Mr. Alien · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-03 07:23:05Z

1

dump $_POST in php to check is it what you expect.
validate form structure. does all inputs are inside same tag?

edited Jan 3, 2013 at 7:23

Mr. Alien

158k36 gold badges307 silver badges287 bronze badges

answered Jan 3, 2013 at 7:21

Jakub Sacha

912 bronze badges

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4 Comments

Andrew Fox Over a year ago

I'm not sure what you mean by "dump $_POST". The form structure I believe it all good, each <input> is in it's own <td> and they are all within <form>.

Jakub Sacha Over a year ago

make var_dump($_POST) in php, and check values (inside php code)

Andrew Fox Over a year ago

+1 for the var_dump($_POST) idea that I didn't know about! The result of that was as expected, I was getting 91 results for each input (I've got 91 rows), but then it all of a sudden stops at Pos_ID and returns only 90 results. There were no results for $_POST['activeBox'], could that be something??

Andrew Fox Over a year ago

I stand corrected, I ran it again (I had some inputs commented out) and it's actually only returning 83 rows for each input when there should be 91. I think we're onto something here!

Rab Khan · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-03 07:23:40Z

0

Extend the condition

if(isset($_POST['update_submit']) && $_POST['update_submit']=="you-given-name-just-null")

edited Jan 3, 2013 at 7:23

Rab Khan

35.7k4 gold badges52 silver badges66 bronze badges

answered Jan 3, 2013 at 7:23

Sarang

1718 bronze badges

1 Comment

Andrew Fox Over a year ago

Although I appreciate the suggestion, why would simply removing the name="Lic_Comp_Exp" make everything else work? What is it about this one particular input name that's causing a problem?

Andrew Fox · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-05 11:42:34Z

I bet I've spent well in excess of 14 hours troubleshooting this problem, and @angel was kind enough to try in depth as well. FINALLY I have it figured out.

The problem ended up being the max_input_vars not being set high enough in my php.ini file. Even bigger problem was that the setting doesn't actually exist until you add it, so when you look through the file, you don't see anything setting a limit in the first place!!

So, to recap. The issue wasn't because of the name="" attribute like I was lead to believe. I figured this out when I removed two other names from two different input fields, suddenly it worked fine and it was only when I had these extra fields that it wouldn't work. The next clue came thanks to @Jakub Sacha when he suggested to use the var_dump($_POST) function. When I started looking at the numbers, it finally clicked that the total amount of fields being passed added up to 1000. After a Google search for PHP 1000 Limit I found out about this max_input_vars setting.

Hopefully this will help someone else out and prevent hours of troubleshooting!

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