help understanding hidden input w/ php

Posted on 16th Feb 2014 by admin

hello i'm doing a tutorial where there are multiple forms for an edit page for a user to update their info... there's a section of the code i dont really understand how it works...here's code:
php:

if ($_POST['parse_var'] == "edit"){

(more php code that executes..)

}

html:

<form action="edit.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" name="edit" id="edit">
<input name="edit" type="text" class="formFields" id="edit" value="" size="36" maxlength="32" />
<input type="hidden" name="parse_var" value="edit" />
<input type="submit" name="button1" id="button1" value="Submit" />
</form>

i dont understand how the "parse_var" and "edit" correlate? the parse_var is the same on every other form and the "edit" would be something different on another form, what "edit" is it specifically talking about and how are they working with each other here?

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