Topic awaiting preservation: getting assigned key from $_FILES array

I have an upload form that allows the user to upload multiple files at once if they want to. I'm using name="photos[]" to have all the uploads in an array on submit. Without going into a huge explaination, I would like to number the keys in the form fields i.e

name="photos[1]" 
name="photos[3]"  
name="photos[7]"

but I don't seem to be able to access the key after a submit. I want to do something like

foreach ($_FILES['photos'] as $key => $value)
{
  echo $key.'<br />';
}

and have it echo
1
3
7

but no matter what I try I don't seem to be able to access the key assigned in the field name. I tried var_dump($_FILES) and print_r($_FILES['photos']) and print_r($_POST) and I don't see the assigned field keys anywhere.

Is this an impossible task?

<edit>
Had to put the code for the fields in UBB code tags or they got parsed for usernames.
</edit>

(Edited by butcher on 05-21-2006 23:51)

I don't think you can put the keys in like that. In this case I don't think you're getting an array you're just getting three values

$_FILES['photosnt'] etc.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

Thanks Bit

I did finally get it and although I'm almost positive I tried this at least once along the way this is what gave me the assigned keys.

foreach ($_FILES['photos'] as $photoArray)
{
  foreach ($photoArray as $key => $value)
  {
    echo $key.'-'. $value;
  }
}

Seems so simple I can't believe it gave me so much trouble figuring it out.

- Butcher -

Ah interesting.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

AFAIR it also work like that for the other kind of form field.



(Edited by poi on 05-22-2006 23:31)

let me ask a silly question. How are you naming the "picture" fields in the form itself? Just curious.

Later,

C:\

never mind. I didn't know you could have the names of the fields as "field[]".

Later,

C:\

Yep. It's a feature of PHP. If you add a foo[] or foo[bar] in either a POST variable (

name="foo[]"

) or GET variable (

?foo[]=bar

), PHP interprets it appropriately. It's not done by Apache or the browser -- this is a feature of the PHP interpreter itself.

Regards,
DC