Form elements into $_POST arrays - html

Question

I'm probably being stupid, because its Friday afternoon, but I just can't work this out.
What I want is to have a form where users can add infinite "records". To do this they click an "add record" button. This runs javascript which adds a new row (tr) to a table within the <form>.
This new row has three input fields.
What I want is for this to be sent to the post variable in a format such as (but not exact if it can't be done, but there's a better way):
$_POST['record'] = array(
array(
"input1" => "value",
"input2" => "value",
"input3" => "value"
),
array(
"input1" => "value",
"input2" => "value",
"input3" => "value"
),
array(
"input1" => "value",
"input2" => "value",
"input3" => "value"
),
);
I know you can get arrays by using the name like so:
<input type="text" name="record[]" />
But this is only 1 input element. Is there any way to get a structure like above with 3 elements?
Thank you.

Answer 1

You can't easily get what you're looking for exactly, but you can use name="record[input1][]" (and input2 etc.) and the result is:
$_POST['record'] = array(
"input1"=>array(
"value", "value", "value"
),
"input2"=>array(
"value", "value", "value"
),
"input3"=>array(
"value", "value", "value"
)
);
You could then transform it into your desired format like so:
$out = Array();
foreach(array_keys($_POST['record']['input1']) as $i) {
foreach($_POST['record'] as $k=>$v) {
$out[$i][$k] = $v[$i];
}
}

Answer 2

I think you are on the right track. using name=record[]. You'll get something like
$_POST['record'] = array(
"record" => array(
"value",
"value",
"value"
),
"field2" => array(
"value",
"value",
"value"
),
"field3" => array(
"value",
"value",
"value"
)
);
So to get each row, you'd use
$cnt = count( $theArray['record'] );
for ($x=0; $x<$cnt; $x++){
echo $theArray['record'][$x];
echo $theArray['field2'][$x];
echo $theArray['field3'][$x];
}

Answer 3

I just tried --
<form action="" method="post">
<input type="text" name="record['set1'][]" />
<input type="text" name="record['set1'][]" />
<input type="text" name="record['set1'][]" />
<input type="text" name="record['set2'][]" />
<input type="text" name="record['set2'][]" />
<input type="text" name="record['set2'][]" />
<input type="text" name="record['set3'][]" />
<input type="text" name="record['set3'][]" />
<input type="text" name="record['set3'][]" />
<input type="submit" value="submit" />
</form>
Output --
Array
(
[record] => Array
(
['set1'] => Array
(
[0] => 1
[1] => 2
[2] => 3
)
['set2'] => Array
(
[0] => 4
[1] => 5
[2] => 6
)
['set3'] => Array
(
[0] => 7
[1] => 8
[2] => 9
)
)
)
Is this how you wanted it?

Answer 4

I think this would be more clearly for you,
$record = array();
foreach($_POST['record'] as $val){
$record[] = $val;
}
print_r($record);