Custom Fields and email formatting

[lastgoodairwave]

I am new to shopsite and have taken over from an earlier designers shopsite set up. We are selling memberships with many fields required. I'm curious if he had this set up correctly, and if not, what would be the best method for collecting the required information. First let me give some info on the actual product.

The membership product needs to have the following fields:

Adult 1 First Name
Adult 1 Last Name
Adult 2 First Name
Adult 2 Last Name
Address
City
State
Zip
Home Phone
Day Phone
Email
Child 1 Name
Child 1 Birthday
Child 2 Name
Child 2 Birthday
Child 3 Name
Child 3 Birthday
Child 4 Name
Child 4 Birthday
Child 5 Name
Child 5 Birthday
Child 6 Name
Child 6 Birthday

The way this is currently set up is using an order anywhere type html page.
I can add validation this way, which I like, by using a php script. All of the fields are using an html form as <select name="3:freeopt">. This works fine, however it's really messy looking for the person who has to gather this information from the merchant email notification. The email formats all of this on one line seperated by commas. It looks something like this in an email.

Qty Name SKU Each Subtotal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Membership $00.00 $00.00
Fname1 ,Lname1,Fname2,Lname2,6500 Main ST,City,ST,00000,000-555-5555,000-555-0000,emailaddress@hotmail.com,Child1 Name,6,21,2000,Child2Name,7,17,2000,Child3Name,3,01,2000,Madeline Child4Name,1,23,2001,Child5Name,8,2006,Child6Name,7,10,2006
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is there a better way to do this?

Can I format it so that it accepts \n (newlines)?
I could have all of the fields go into a php validation script that sets the <select name ="3:freeopt">to something like this example:

Code: Select all

<?php

$formatted_field="Adult 1:$_POST[Fname] $_POST[Lname]\n
Adult 2: $_POST[Fname2] $_POST[Lname2]\n
Child1: $_POST[ChildName1] B-Day: $_POST[b_month1]/$_POST[b_day1]/$_POST[b_year1]\n";
// etc...

?>


I hope this makes sense.

Thanks,
Ash