What I have is a form with 45 data fields... if any of a selected 35 of those fields is empty, I want to have the user go back. So I can't loop over the entire _POST array. So I thought I would put the names of the fields I *do* want to check into an array and check. So this won't work: > foreach($array as $key=>$value){ > if(empty($value)){ > $err_msg= "$key is empty"; > break; Because the array is the names of the fields, and I want to check each variable in _POST that matches. So instead of writing if (empty($_POST['forma']) if (empty($_POST['formb']) etc I would do something like $fieldstocheck = array('forma', 'formb'); foreach ($fields as $thisfield) { if (empty($_POST[$thisfield])) { set the error flag; } But that doesn't seem to work. Eventually I will use the array to associate error text: $fieldstocheck = array('forma' => 'You must enter field A', 'formb' => ''Field B is your age in years and is required'); etc c -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php