Question: I'm using **Multiple Select with Groups** and **Multiple Select** from <http://harvesthq.github.com/chosen/>

Does anyone know how to get the values of the submitted data using php?

`$_POST['countries'];` does not work and only returns one of the selected items (not an array)

And here is the select tag name/id etc

```
 <select name="countries" multiple="multiple" class="chzn-select" id="countries" tabindex="6" data-placeholder="Countries">

```

PS. I already checked [Chosen Jquery Plugin - getting selected values](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10521315/chosen-jquery-plugin-getting-selected-values) but can't figure out what to do except for getting the value. Is there a straight forward method without using events to update a hidden field and submit data?

Answer: 
When you are posting multiple values using a `<select>` you need to name it a way, it looks like an `array`.

```
<select name="countries[]">
</select>

```

This should be the way. And upon `POST`, the variable should be accessible as:

```
$_POST['countries'] = array(
  [0] => 'India' , // First selected value
  [1] => 'Indiana' , // Second
  [2] => 'USA' // Third
);

// So...
echo $_POST['countries'][1];
// would print "Indiana"

```

Note: The values will be held in a standard, zero-indexed array
Check these links: <http://www.onlinetools.org/tricks/using_multiple_select.php> and [How to get multiple selected values of select box in php?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2407284/how-to-get-multiple-selected-values-of-select-box-in-php)

The select name should have square brackets at it's end, so it would be

`name="countries[]"`

Use `print_r()` at the PHP code to see what was posted.
Use `foreach()` to loop through the values.