[4.0] Form field name as array results in error, when returned back to withInput

[tomsseisums]

Huh, after some L4 updates, parts of my application have stopped working.

Route::get('keda', function()
{
    echo Form::open();

    echo Form::label('servers', 'Servers');
    echo Form::text('servers[]', Input::old('servers.0', 'zero'));

    echo '<br>';

    echo Form::submit('Sent');

    echo Form::close();
});

Route::post('keda', function()
{
    return Redirect::back()->withInput();
});

Always end up with:

'ErrorException' with message 'htmlentities() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given' in /srv/stone/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Support/helpers.php:508

Full stack trace

The problem appears to start in FormBuilder::getValueAttribute, where it looks up old input and favors it before explicit value*:

if ( ! is_null($this->old($name)))
{
    return $this->old($name);
}

That, runs FormBuilder::old that eventually calls FormBuilder::transformKey, that removes brackets, transforming server[] into server, and therefore, returing the array of values not a single value.

• I feel that it's a bug. IMO, a passed (explicit) value should be always favored instead of old values.

What about this example:

Route::get('keda', function()
{
    echo Form::open();

    echo Form::label('servers', 'Servers');
    echo Form::text('server', !Input::old('server') ? 'troll' : 'ful' );

    echo '<br>';

    echo Form::submit('Sent');

    echo Form::close();
});

Route::post('keda', function()
{
    return Redirect::back()->withInput();
});

If there is no old entry, default to troll, if there is entry, use "ful", the problem, though, is that it always is filled with old entry never returning ful.

---

A simple reordering fixes both issues.

---

Is this a bug, intenional and I'm doing something wrong, or...?

[Milananas]

I also have this problem. After scrolling through the Laravel source a while I found out the same reason why this happens. Is this intended? If so, maybe arrays should be ignored? In my opinion though, as said above, if a specific value is given it should override the default behavior. Especially since there's already an Input::old() method that accepts a default value in case the old value isn't found.

[jackmcdade]

Having this problem too.

[rbruhn]

Ditto. This issue was also mentioned in #2243
In my case, I'm adding a group of fields via ajax using a Add button. Each group consists of:
darwin_name[]
darwin_description[]
darwin_valid_response[]
darwin_inference[]
Apparently adding the key works. So I'm just going to try adding the key when adding a new group via ajax.

[anlutro]

This problem has been present for as long as I can remember. It is hard to fix and the solution is to manually add an index to your input arrays - e.g. Form::text("servers[$i]")

[taylorotwell]

I don't have any plans to continue developing the Form and HTML helpers myself, and am going to leave the rest of the development on those pieces up to the community.