Post values from a multiple select

user1430949 picture user1430949 · Jul 23, 2012 · Viewed 103.6k times · Source

How can I post values from a multiple select in a form? When I hit submit none of the selected values are posted.

<form id="form" action="" method="post">
    <div>
        <select id="inscompSelected" multiple="multiple" class="lstSelected">
            <option value="1">1</option>
            <option value="2">2</option>
            <option value="3">3</option>
            <option value="4">4</option>                
        </select>
        <input type="submit" value="submit">
    </div>
</form>

Answer

iambriansreed picture iambriansreed · Jul 23, 2012

You need to add a name attribute.

Since this is a multiple select, at the HTTP level, the client just sends multiple name/value pairs with the same name, you can observe this yourself if you use a form with method="GET": someurl?something=1&something=2&something=3.

In the case of PHP, Ruby, and some other library/frameworks out there, you would need to add square braces ([]) at the end of the name. The frameworks will parse that string and wil present it in some easy to use format, like an array.

Apart from manually parsing the request there's no language/framework/library-agnostic way of accessing multiple values, because they all have different APIs

For PHP you can use:

<select name="something[]" id="inscompSelected" multiple="multiple" class="lstSelected">