Dynamically adding form elements with jQuery and submitting to database with PHP

The PHP code <?php $count++; ?> executes on the server, before the page is sent to the client; it does not execute when the JavaScript function fires. You'll need to use a JavaScript variable for the incremental field count.

Also, in your form, you'll just have repeated instances of a field named "count" with increasing values, and instances of a text area called "notes". The "count" fields will be pointless as you can't associate them with the text areas (form fields are not guaranteed to be submitted in any particular order by the form.)

You'll probably want to append the count to the field name on the dynamic fields, in order to be able to know which fields go together in a row. You can then iterate over the posted fields in your form handler and use the index at the end of the field name to match the related fields together. I've done this many times, it's a bit tricky, but absolutely doable.

The alternative solution is to name your text areas "notes[]" instead of "notes". Then, in your form handler, $_REQUEST['notes'] will be an array of all the "notes" fields in your form. This works fine if there's only one dynamic field to deal with; however, if each dynamically-added row has multiple fields related to one another, you won't be able to tell which fields go together in a row. In that case, you'll have to append the index to the form field name.

To my knowledge, the PHP script executes at server side and the code <?php $count++; ?> will not be executed in loop. It will be executed once at server side. You will have to do the other way round, iterate on the list in PHP script and attach the event accordingly.

I have no PHP skills, so can't provide a code sample.

Hope this helps.

PHP code is only executed server side before it is ever sent to the browser, you'll need to get a row count using javascript.

Try something like this:

var cnt = $('.mainTable > tbody > tr').length + 1;
var row = '<tr><td>Chronic Pain Referral</td><td>Chronic referral</td><td><input type="hidden" name="count" value="' + cnt + '"><textarea name="notes"></textarea></td></tr>';

Now, if you are submitting all rows at once you'll need to add a [] to each row's field names. This informs PHP that the data is an array. This is probably where your error is coming from when using foreach, you aren't passing it an array.

<textarea name="notes[]"></textarea>

Then when you get the form submission in PHP you don't need the count and can simply do:

<?php
if (!empty($_POST['notes'])) {
  foreach ($_POST['notes'] as $note) {
     ...
  }
}
?>

An example of Adrian's way:

<textarea name="notes_"' + cnt + '"></textarea>

PHP:

<?php
if (!empty($_POST)) {
  foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {
    $pieces = explode('_', $key);
    $field = $pieces[0];
    if ($field == 'notes') {
      $row = $pieces[1];          
      // Process data... 
    }
  }
}
?>