I am creating a PDF form where the user will be selecting from a long list of 25 options. The completed form will be exported to an XFDF file, which will be automatically processed and put into a database. For each of the 25 options, they can either select "primary", one "secondary", or "none". There can only be one primary, but there can be many secondaries.
So if I wanted it to export correctly, I would make each choice a separate radio button group, and it would look like this:
Choice1: P() S() N()
Choice2: P() S() N()
...
Choice25: P() S() N()
If the user selected "P" for Choice1 and "S" for Choice2, it would export as
<field name="Choice1">
<value>P</value>
</field>
<field name="Choice2">
<value>S</value>
</field>
Which would be processed correctly. Unfortunately this doesn't prevent the user from picking "P" for multiple options. I have created a separate question for the possible solution of keeping the radio buttons, but somehow making the form enforce the no-homo-threesome rule ("only one P allowed" :P), here:
How to have many radio button field groups where only one group can have a certain value selected?
But I hate to pigeonhole solutions, and the stackexchange model meant I had to make the question specific. I also considered a different solution, and this question is about that possibility.
It would make more sense to switch the rows and columns here, and have a radio button group and 25 checkboxes:
Primary: Choice1() Choice2() ... Choice25() Secondary: Choice1[] Choice2[] ... Choice25[]
The radio button already enforces only allowing one choice, so this would work fine for data entry. But I can't just do that, because after the users fill out these forms, the data would not export correctly. the export would instead look like
<field name="Primary">
<value>Choice1</value>
</field>
<field name="Choice2">
<value>S</value>
</field>
And since it's supposed to go into the "Choice1" database column as a P, rather than the nonexistent "Primary" column, this won't work. Could I use the radio+checkbox approach, but somehow make the Primary selection export in the format I need it?
