EE form Post Vars

Question

I have the following code to parse a form submitted in EE:

foreach ($fields as $f)
{            
    if(isset($_POST[$f]) {
        $$f = $this->EE->input->post($f);
        $$f = $this->EE->security->xss_clean($$f);
        $clean_data[$f] = $$f;
    }
}

Not all members in the $fields array may be present in the post.

Does that raise an exception if the field doesn't exist or will it go ahead and create a member in $clean_data for the missing postvar?

If so, would this be a simplification of the entire loop above?

foreach ($fields as $f)
{            
    $$f = $this->EE->input->post($f, true);
    $clean_data[$f] = $$f;
}

The $fields array is needed to post to a web service. All fields are required in the $fields array but they may not be present in the post.

Answer 1

Why not skip the extra step

$clean_data = array();
foreach ($fields as $f)
{            
    $clean_data[$f] = $this->EE->input->post($f, true);
}

input->post() will return FALSE if the field was not posted.

edit: if fields should be required and contain certain types of values, you need to look at the Form Validation

http://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide/development/usage/form_validation.html

http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/libraries/form_validation.html

Answer 2

Here is the code that works for me:

foreach ($clean_data as $key=>$value)
{            
    if(isset($_POST[$key])) {
        $clean_data[$key] = $this->EE->input->post($key, true);            
    }
}