how to build PHP/MySQL query to input data from a series of checkboxes

I am making a website that will show night club revelers events and night establishments in a big city.

A user should be able to add certain details when adding their event on the site e.g.(in the events table) event_id, event_name, event_description, event_date, event_photo_url etc.

I want users to be able to search or find certain events or establishments based on interests. I have an interest table that looks like this.

interest_id, interest-name

1, Shoot Pool

2, Karaoke

3, Lounge

4, 开发者_JAVA技巧 Live Band

5, Dancing

6, Watch Sports

So there are 6 checkboxes on my form. A user can select none, 1, 2 or all 6.

Should I have each checkbox submit individual values to my submit form, ie

input name="dancing" type="checkbox" value="5" 
input name="watch_sports" type="checkbox" value="6"

Or should I build an array

input name="interest[]" type="checkbox" value="5" 
input name="interest[]" type="checkbox" value="6" 

I have a table to link events with interests ie;

event_interest table  
event_interest_id            
event_id              
interest_id 

I have never implemented a series of check boxes before. Does anyone know the way to go about capturing user input and storing the values in my database?

you will get as POST or GET those checkbox values which are checked.

so u can do something like:

$interests = $_POST['interests'];
$event_id = intval($_POST['event_id']);//or where ever you get that from
foreach($interests as $interest){
    ....
    $interest = intval($interest);
    $query = "INSERT INTO event_interests  SET interest_id = $interest, event_id = $event_id";
    .... //send query to db
}