php - Checkbox HTML array syntax doesn't work in CakePHP 4

Solution:

Your field name is the same as the data name, egservices, and thus the form helper will pick up an array for the current value of each individual control, and that will fail, as the "should be checked" logic needs to compare two flat values.

If you want to create individual checkboxes like this, then you either need to take care of passing the possible POST data for the individual controls too, which is what mark's example does, or you need to test the data manually and mark the boxes checked accordingly, here's one example:

$values = (array)$this->Form->getSourceValue('services');

echo $this->Form->checkbox('services[]', [
    'value' => 'first',
    'checked' => in_array('first', $values),
    // ...
]);
echo $this->Form->checkbox('services[]', [
    'value' => 'second',
    'checked' => in_array('second', $values),
    'hiddenField' => false,
    // ...
]);
echo $this->Form->checkbox('services[]', [
    'value' => 'third',
    'checked' => in_array('third', $values),
    'hiddenField' => false,
    // ...
]);
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That being said, for your specific case you should be able to simply use a multi-checkbox control, which will handle looking up data and marking the boxes checked automatically:

echo $this->Form->select(
    'services',
    $options,
    ['multiple' => 'checkbox', /* ... */]
);
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If you want to use names as the option values,$options would need to be an array like:

[
    'Service 1' => 'Service 1',
    'Service 2' => 'Service 2',
    // ...
]
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as the array index is used for the checkbox value, and the array value is used for the checkbox label.

See also

• Cookbook > Views > Helpers > Form > Creating Select, Checkbox and Radio Controls
• Cookbook > Views > Helpers > Form > Creating Select Pickers

Solution:

I remember that I wrote a helper for that once for my project(s) Something along the lines of

namespace App\View\Helper;

use Cake\View\Helper\FormHelper;

/**
 * Allows forms with fieldname[] syntax.
 *
 * @author Mark Scherer
 * @license MIT
 * @property \Cake\View\Helper\UrlHelper $Url
 * @property \App\View\Helper\HtmlHelper $Html
 */
class ArrayFormHelper extends FormHelper
{
    /**
     * @var int
     */
    protected $counter = 0;

    /**
     * @var array
     */
    protected $data = [];

    /**
     * @param array $config
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function initialize(array $config): void
    {
        $this->data = $this->getView()->getRequest()->getData();
    }

    /**
     * @return void
     */
    public function endRow(): void
    {
        $this->counter++;
    }

    /**
     * @return void
     */
    public function reset(): void
    {
        $this->counter = 0;
    }

    /**
     * @param string $field
     * @param array $options
     *
     * @return string
     */
    public function arrayControl(string $field, array $options = []): string
    {
        if (array_key_exists($this->counter, $this->data[$field])) {
            $options['default'] = $this->data[$field][$this->counter];
            $this->getView()->setRequest($this->getView()->getRequest()->withoutData($field));
        }

        return $this->control($field . '[]', $options);
    }
}
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to be used as e.g.

echo $this->ArrayForm->arrayControl('module', ['label' => 'Module', 'placeholder' => 'CamelCase']);
echo $this->ArrayForm->arrayControl('type', ['label' => 'Type', 'options' => ['patch' => 'patch', 'minor' => 'minor', 'major' => 'major'], 'empty' => true]);
$this->ArrayForm->endRow();
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The counter and endRow stuff isn't needed if this is not inside a loop (as in my case it was).