Strange behaviour with Zend_Element 'belongsTo' property - zend-framework

Question

I've seen other threads and bug reports to do with the belongsTo property of an Zend_Element but nothing that relates directly to what i'm experiencing..
Here is my (simplified) Zend_Form:
$form = new Zend_Form();
$form->addElement('text', 'fname', array('belongsTo' => 'user'));
$form->addElement('text', 'sname', array('belongsTo' => 'user'));
Which is fine and the elements render like so:
<input type="text" name="user[fname]" />
<input type="text" name="user[sname]" />
...which is exactly what i want.
However, when the form is submitted, the element values are only accessible if you call
$form->getValue('fname') or $form->getValue('sname')
NOT, if you call...
$form->getValue('user');
What i'm expecting to see when you call $form->getValues('user') is an array of the values.
The array of values is clearly visible if you call
$form->getValues();
If this is the expected behaviour, then whats the point of putting them in an array? Because there would be no distinction between "user[fname]" and "client[fname]" - in fact adding another element with name "fname", even though it belongs to another item, would overwrite the previous.
I've tried adding a sub form which does result in what i want, but that way all the sub-form elements get rendered together, what i really want is to lay the 'array' elements in random places, like this...
<input type="text" name="user[fname]" />
<input type="text" name="some-other-field" />
<input type="text" name="some-other-field2" />
<input type="text" name="user[sname]" />
<input type="text" name="another-field-too" />

Answer 1

$form->getValue('fname') or $form->getValue('sname')
works this way because getValue() is just looking for the name of the element, and the names of your elemnts are fname and sname.
Excerpt: Zend/Form.php
public function getValue($name)
{
if ($element = $this->getElement($name)) {
return $element->getValue();
}
the way to access your belongsTo data from what I've seen should be:
$data = $form->getValues();
$user=$data['user'];
this should do what you want. Based on this:
Excerpt: Zend/Form.php
public function getValues($suppressArrayNotation = false)
{
$values = array();
$eBelongTo = null;
if ($this->isArray()) {
$eBelongTo = $this->getElementsBelongTo();
}
foreach ($this->getElements() as $key => $element) {
if (!$element->getIgnore()) {
$merge = array();
if (($belongsTo = $element->getBelongsTo()) !== $eBelongTo) {
if ('' !== (string)$belongsTo) {
$key = $belongsTo . '[' . $key . ']';
}
}
$merge = $this->_attachToArray($element->getValue(), $key);
$values = $this->_array_replace_recursive($values, $merge);
}
}
//...Code continues
return $values;
Hope this helps.