codeigniter query builder will update db with just about anything - php

Question

I'm new to codeigniter and trying to get my mind around the query builder functionality. I currently have an update method where I pass user entered data to update a record in the db. I've noticed it seems to be successful no matter what kind of junk data I throw at it, and I'm wondering if there's a setting or something I need to change, or what.
As you can see below, in my model I'm bypassing the user entered value and putting in junk data and it is still successful. It just inserts 0000-00-00. DOB in the DB is a date datatype.
I always get a success result from this, and it updates the DB, so techically it was successful. I have controls in place to prevent junk data from ever being sent to the model, but it doesn't give me warm fuzzies knowing that it is behaving this way.
Controller:
$updateResult = $this->Patients_model->update_patient_profile($this->data['post_data']);
if($updateResult === true)
{
$this->data['patient_profile'] = $this->Patients_model->get_patient_profile($patientId);
$this->data['update_result'] = true;
$this->load->view('index', $this->data);
}
else
{
$this->data['update_result'] = false;
print_r($updateResult);
}
Model:
function update_patient_profile($data)
{
$patient_id = $data['patient_id'];
unset($data['patient_id']);
$data['dob'] = 'this is not even a date'; //will store 0000-00-00 in DB.
$this->db->where('patient_id', $patient_id);
$this->db->update($this->patientsTable, $data);
if($this->db->affected_rows()) {
return true;
}
else
{
return $this->db->error();
}
}

Answer 1

You can check with PHP and thorw an error for invalid date. try this:
function update_patient_profile($data)
{
$patient_id = $data['patient_id'];
unset($data['patient_id']);
$check_date = $data['dob'];
if(strtotime($check_date))
{
$data['dob'] = date("Y-m-d",strtotime($check_date)); // to confirm date is valid and equivalant to database format
}
else
{
throw new Exception("Invalid date", 1);
}
$data['dob'] = 'this is not even a date'; //will store 0000-00-00 in DB.
$this->db->where('patient_id', $patient_id);
$this->db->update($this->patientsTable, $data);
if($this->db->affected_rows()) {
return true;
}
else
{
return $this->db->error();
}
}