Limit for number of html inputs

[tedkurtz]

I ran into a situation which suggests to me that there is a limit to the number of input text boxes you can have in an HTML form. I'm developing a registration system for a sports event and wanted a form which would allow the organizers to edit several items for each entrant. I had one hidden input with the entrant's ID and two text-box inputs for the items I wanted to edit. I found that this wouldn't work for more than approximately 333 entrants. I tried one hidden input (ID) and one text-box input and found that it wouldn't work for more than approximately 498 entrants. In each case that is approximately 1000 inputs. I use the POST method to transfer the inputs.

I'm using PHP to process the submitted form, and the PHP program runs only if I observe the limit.

I've Googled around and have found some discussion along this line, and those claiming to be in the know say that that there is no limit for the POST method.

Any thoughts?

TedK

[JameB]

Could be that the information from the 1000 inputs is taking too much time to transfer and the process is killed due to exceeding the time limit.

One temporary solution would be to break the pages into two or three or however many pages, with each page having ~1000 inputs.
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Just wondering though, why do you need that many inputs anyways?! Do you think people will enter 500 people at the same time?

[almostbob]

not the ideal way to handle multiple inputs or multiple users
example, 100 entrants = 400x3 'invalid form data' messages if the form is validated, or 400 users created to blank values if the form is not validated
most input is done one record at a time
multiple updates can be better handled with a specific form to update table

[sheikhali449]

reaching the limit is not a piece of cake though