CakePHP 3 Modelless form with dotted fields - php

Question

In my form.ctp I have some inputs which are named with dot notation, so they are joined on the POST to the same array inside $this->request->data.
The problem is that I can't manage to create a Modelless form for it, because it won't map dot notations to array, and searchs the fields like consumer.name literally in request->data. Is there anything I can do to validate this data with a simple $form->execute()?
My Cake version is 3.1.1
The code:
//Form Class
protected function _buildSchema(Schema $schema)
{
return $schema->addField('consumer.name', 'string')
->addField('consumer.card_number', ['type' => 'string'])
->addField('consumer.expire_month', ['type' => 'string'])
->addField('consumer.expire_year', ['type' => 'string'])
->addField('type', ['type' => 'string'])
->addField('consumer.cvv', ['type' => 'string']);
}
protected function _buildValidator(Validator $validator)
{
return $validator->add('consumer.name', 'length', [
'rule' => ['minLength', 3],
'message' => 'Consumer name too short',
])
->requirePresence('type', true)
->requirePresence('consumer.name', true)
->requirePresence('consumer.card_number', true)
->requirePresence('consumer.expire_month', true)
->requirePresence('consumer.expire_year', true)
->requirePresence('consumer.cvv', true)
->add('consumer.card_number', 'validFormat', [
'rule' => array('custom', '/[0-9]{16}/'),
'message' => 'A valid card number is required',
])
->add('consumer.expire_month', 'validFormat', [
'rule' => array('custom', '/[01]?[0-9]/'),
'message' => 'A valid expire month is required',
])
->add('consumer.expire_year', 'validFormat', [
'rule' => array('custom', '/[0-9]{2}/'),
'message' => 'A valid expire year is required',
])
->add('consumer.cvv', 'validFormat', [
'rule' => array('custom', '/[0-9]{3}/'),
'message' => 'A valid CVV is required',
]);
}
My view has several inputs like this:
<?php echo $this->Form->input('consumer.name', [
'label' => false,
'class' => 'form-control inputbox_user',
'pattern' => "^[a-zA-ZàáâäãåąčćęèéêëėįìíîïłńòóôöõøùúûüųūÿýżźñçčšžÀÁÂÄÃÅĄĆČĖĘÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏĮŁŃÒÓÔÖÕØÙÚÛÜŲŪŸÝŻŹÑßÇŒÆČŠŽ∂ð ,.'-]+$",
'required' => true,
'title' => 'Introduce el nombre del titular de la tarjeta.',
]);
?>
And my controller logic:
$form = new PaymentForm;
if ($this->request->is(['patch', 'post', 'put'])){
if( $form->execute($this->request->data) ){
//ok
}
}
}

Answer 1

The dot notation will be already turned into a "HTML array" in the view. Debug your request and you'll see ['consumer']['name']. This works as intended by the framework and is correct. AFAIK there is no way around that - and not needed.
Simply change your notation to underscore: consumer_name for example. To use the dots is for another reason a bad idea as well: You will make things difficult for yourself if you need to access them via JS or CSS.