Need Help Specifying Attributes for add_cart

[hxiao]

So, currently I'm doing very well adding products into the shopping cart via update_product. Except for the fact that I am confused as to what the array I need to pass into $_REQUEST['id'] actually needs to look like so that I can get the attributes I want on everything. I'm having a tough time getting my mind around what the relationship would be in the array/mapping of all the products ids, attribute ids, options and values. The relevant code:

 

case 'update_product' : for ($i=0, $n=sizeof($_REQUEST['products_id']); $i<$n; $i++) {
                               if (in_array($_REQUEST['products_id'][$i], (is_array($_REQUEST['cart_delete']) ? $_REQUEST['cart_delete'] : array()))) {
                                 $cart->remove($_REQUEST['products_id'][$i]);
                               } else {
                                 if (PHP_VERSION < 4) {
                                   // if PHP3, make correction for lack of multidimensional array.
                                   reset($_REQUEST);
                                   while (list($key, $value) = each($_REQUEST)) {
                                     if (is_array($value)) {
                                       while (list($key2, $value2) = each($value)) {
                                         if (ereg ("(.*)\]\[(.*)", $key2, $var)) {
                                           $id2[$var[1]][$var[2]] = $value2;
                                         }
                                       }
                                     }
                                   }
                                   $attributes = ($id2[$_REQUEST['products_id'][$i]]) ? $id2[$_REQUEST['products_id'][$i]] : '';
                                 } else {
                                   $attributes = ($_REQUEST['id'][$_REQUEST['products_id'][$i]]) ? $_REQUEST['id'][$_REQUEST['products_id'][$i]] : '';
                                 }
                                 $cart->add_cart($_REQUEST['products_id'][$i], $_REQUEST['cart_quantity'][$i], $attributes, false);
                               }
                             }
                             tep_redirect(tep_href_link($goto, tep_get_all_get_params($parameters)));
                             break;

Any help detailing what this array would look like conceptually would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.