Well, there's two approaches you can take.

My preference is to give all related checkboxes the same name and create an
array to help group the data.

Let's say you had a form that asked a user if they do any board sports
(snow, skate, surf).  Assume the user selects "Surf" and "Snow"


[Arrays]

Version 1:
Do you:
<FORM...>
  <INPUT type="checkbox" name="sports[]" value="snow">Snow</INPUT>
  <INPUT type="checkbox" name="sports[]" value="skate">Skate</INPUT>
  <INPUT type="checkbox" name="sports[]" value="surf">Surf</INPUT>
  <INPUT type="submit">
</FORM>


Submitting this would generate an array, $sports:
  [0] => 'snow'
  [1] => 'surf'

This kind of array is easy to iterate across using numerical indexes.




[Version 2:]

Do you:
<FORM...>
  <INPUT type="checkbox" name="sports[snow]">Snow</INPUT>
  <INPUT type="checkbox" name="sports[skate]">Skate</INPUT>
  <INPUT type="checkbox" name="sports[surf]">Surf</INPUT>
</FORM>

Submitting this would generate an array, $sports:
  [snow] => 'On'
  [surf] => 'On'

This kind of array is easy to iterate across with a foreach.  The difference
being that the key tells you which box was checked, not the value.


You can, of course, use a combination of these array options to suit your
preference.

Also -- don't think that I'm saying "use one array for ALL your checkboxes".
Far from it -- the array approach lets you group together related inputs.
If I had another input on the same form about "Which import beers do you
like?" I would definitely not use name="sports[]" for those inputs.


Best of luck,

nik