My question is whether I should use set_value() at all to re-populate a form. It might seem odd to say that, however I am creating a shared controller function and view which can be used to either add a new record or edit an existing one. It seems to make sense to do this since the functionality is so incredibly alike.
As such, if we call up an existing record to edit I do this:
$data['fields'] = $this->customer_model->get_customer($id);
If the form is submitted to save the record, or if we're adding a record for the first time, the form has the potential to reload if the user makes a mistake so I populate $data['fields'] this way instead:
$data['fields'] = array(
'company' => $this->input->post('company') ?: '',
'website' => $this->input->post('website') ?: '',
'credit_limit' => $this->input->post('credit_limit') ?: ''
);
My form element looks like this:
<input type="text" name="company" value="<?php echo set_value('company', $fields['company']); ?>" />
But I'm thinking it may as well look like this:
<input type="text" name="company" value="<?php echo escape_html($fields['company']); ?>" />
Since the form data could come from either user input (when adding or saving) or from the database (when retrieving a record to edit) I cannot rely entirely on post() or set_value() without the 2nd parameter. Furthermore, the second parameter for set_value() will always exist ($fields['company'] in this example) because it's initialized from the start, which is why I am thinking of just using it directly.
Is there a problem with this approach?
If you want to populate form fields on FALSE return of Form Validation or insert data for editing operations, I suggest you to use following helper:
Usage
<input type="text" name="last_name" value="<?=vset_value('last_name','',$rs);?>">
Explanation
$rs here is the $db data for record (if you are sending it to view). To stay at the safe side please include $this->data['rs'] = false; at your controller. If $rs is set and true, helper take results from it and display it. Otherwise it displays if the key exist in $_POST. If both don't exists, it display default value.
Helper
/**
* vayes_helper::vset_value
*
* Retains state of INPUT text after Form Validation
*
* #access public
* #param string name of INPUT tag
* #param string default value for INPUT tag
* #param mixed DB Result (array or object)
* #return string
*/
if(!function_exists('vset_value')) {
function vset_value ($name_of_input,$default_state='',$db_result_array='') {
$CI = &get_instance();
$render_state = $default_state;
if($CI->input->post()) {
$render_state = $CI->input->post($name_of_input);
} else {
if(is_object($db_result_array) && isset($db_result_array->$name_of_input)) {
$render_state = (isset($db_result_array->$name_of_input)) ? $db_result_array->$name_of_input : $default_state;
} else if($db_result_array != '' && array_key_exists($name_of_input,$db_result_array)) {
$render_state = (isset($db_result_array[$name_of_input])) ? $db_result_array[$name_of_input] : $default_state;
}
}
return $render_state;
}
}
If you like the way, let me know. I can supply for more form input type like select, checkbox, etc.
The approach is correct, as mentioned in the CodeIgniter docs. In fact, you don't need to include the second parameter in set_value.
set_value definition:
string set_value(string $field = '', string $default = '')
//$field: If there is a submitted field with this name, its value is returned.
//$default: If there is no matching submitted field, this value is returned.
Yes,You should.
set_value() is used to re-populate a form has failed validation.
There is no additional filtering on it, so it faster.
But, I prefer some times to use $this->input->post() for the secure.
Related
Ok first I have a "settings" table on my database in which I have the fields "name" and "value" its a configuration kind of table where the value could be anything from string to boolean values etc.
Now on my blade, I have a form with various inputs "texts" "selects" "checkboxes" etc. When submitting the form on the controller I run a foreach where for each attribute of the $request I store its key as the name and its value as its value on the database.
$agency_id = Auth::user()->agency->id;
$settings = AgencySettings::whereAgencyId($agency_id)->get();
foreach ($request->except('_token') as $key => $value)
{
$setting = $settings->where('name','=',$key)->first();
if (boolval($setting))
{
$setting->value = $value;
$setting->update();
}else{
$setting = new AgencySettings;
$setting->agency_id = $agency_id;
$setting->name = $key;
$setting->value = $value;
$setting->save();
}
}
All works well except the unchecked checkboxes which are not inside the $request.
I know I can handle them like so $request->has('name_of_checkbox') but because of the dynamic nature of the table on the database, I don't want to have hardcoded on my Controller the name of a specific setting.
My goal is that the code on my Controller will be the same regardless the number of different settings I will use on my frontend (maybe in the future there will be a need to add more).
So my question, is there a way to handle those checkboxes serverside without having to refer to them specifically, or a way to always return the value of the checkboxes to the server despite its state?
My first thought is to go with javascript and hidden inputs, but maybe there is a better way.
You could add a hidden field with the same name before every checkbox you want to receive, like :
<input type="hidden" name="checkbox-1" value="0" />
<input type="checkbox" name="checkbox-1" value="1" /> My checbox 1
That will send the hidden field with the 0 value when the field is unchecked and send the proper truthy value when it's checked.
NOTE: Just make sure you're adding the hidden field first so you'll receive just the checked one when the field is checked.
Other solution is to simply check if value for "checkbox-1" is set in post array.
So you will set default to 0 on your controller side and check if value exists instead of checking if it is 0 or 1.
(M.)
I know to use set_value() for setting default values in a CodeIgniter form, but how can I set the default values for the validation if either the value isnt submitted or its before a form submission?
public function index($uri = NULL)
{
$this->load->helper('form');
$this->load->library('form_validation');
//pull from DB or Session
$data = array(
'Status' => 'users_default_status',
'Order' => 'users_default_order',
'Asc' => 'users_default_asc'
);
$this->form_validation->set_data($data);
$this->form_validation->set_rules('Status', 'Status', 'numeric|trim|required|strtolower');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('Order', 'Order', 'trim|required');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('Asc', 'Asc', 'trim|required|strtolower');
if ($this->form_validation->run() === FALSE) // validation failed
{
// validation failed but maintain submitted values in form/feedback
}else{
// validation successful, do whatever
}
}
So that if there was a form submission it uses the POST values, and if not it uses defaults (but still validated). I would like the defaults to work on a variable by variable basis, so some can be defaults some can be user submitted.
I know to use set_value() for setting default values in a CodeIgniter form, but how can I set the default values for the validation if either the value isn't submitted or it's before a form submission?
Simply check if the value exists and use it as the default, otherwise it's blank (or a different default).
In the Controller, decide if you're going to load a blank form, if not, send the data for the fields....
$data['fieldname'] = "whatever"; // from the database
$this->load->view('yourpage', $data);
Then in your View, check for the existence of this data for each field. If the data was sent, use it. Otherwise, set a blank value.
<?php $value = isset($fieldname) ? $fieldname : ''; ?>
<input name="fieldname" value="<?php echo set_value('fieldname', $value); ?>" type="text" />
If you do not send the data from the Controller, the field will be blank (you could also set a default)
If you send the data from the Controller, the field will be filled out with this data from your Controller (database).
If you submit the form and validation fails, set_value() function will reload the field with the data from the most recent post array.
These are just some thoughts...
The validation rules act upon the posted data. So if you are using set_value('order',$default_order), when the form is submitted it will either take the new user entered value or the one you provided.
If the user empties a prefilled or default input, you can't have it set as "required" in the rules. What you would do is use a callback function to handle that case to check if it's empty and provide a default value and return TRUE.
I have found that when I use set_value() in a Codeigniter 2 form, to repopulate a form field, it only returns a value if I have a validation rule set for this input.
Which is fine if I am validating a field, but not fine if it is an optional input with no validation.
So what I plan to do now as standard for every single form I process, is add this little hack to create 'empty' rules before adding any genuine validation rules;
//iterate over every posted value and create an empty rule for it.
foreach ($this->input->post() as $key => $value) {
$this->form_validation->set_rules($key);
}
Then if I have any 'real' rules I will add them afterwards so they overwrite the previous empty rule.
What I want to know is, is there another way to do this, built into the framework? It seems like a bit of an omission that these values are not available to the set_value() function until they have a rule, which makes me wonder if I have missed a configuration option?
Instead of set_value, you can use $this->input->post() to get its submitted value.
For ex:
<input name='test_name' type='text' value = '<?php echo $this->input->post("test_name");?>' />
If you're using the validation library, you have to set at least a
validation rule for your field to get set_value() form helper
function to work.
If you're interested to know the reason behind this and/or how set_*() functions work, you can refer to my answer here:
set_select() helper function is not working
In this particular instance, I suggest using $_POST[$key] to fetch the posted value of the field. Because Input::post() method doesn't do anything more than reading the value from $_POST.
Thus, you could get the value as follows:
$value = isset($_POST[$field]) ? $_POST[$field] : 'default value';
// Or echo off the errors
$value = #$_POST[$field]) ?: 'default value'; // PHP 5.3+ syntax
(Check the result).
You could also extend the CI form helper in order to to add a new helper function:
application\helpers\MY_form_helper.php
if (! function_exists('get_value')) {
function get_value($field = '', $default = '')
{
if (! isset($_POST[$field]))
{
if (count($_POST) === 0 AND $default !== '')
{
return $default;
}
return '';
}
return $_POST[$field];
}
}
Then could use the helper function as follows:
<input name="my_field" type="text" value="<?php echo get_value('my_field', 'Default Value'); ?>">
The Question: How do I insert values from a database table (#__mytable) into form text fields (motitle and modescription) which have been rendered from an XML file within the Joomla 3.0 platform?
-
I've been trying for days to solve this "easy" Joomla! based undocumented challenge.
I have followed Joomla!'s guide for Developing an MVC, read most of their out-of-date documentation and torn apart the com_content component but have still no idea how to populate my fields.
I've been playing with $this->form->bind($this->item);.
Below I have included some of my code to show the structure I am using. Please feel free to point out any issues you spot along the way.
Models\Forms\item.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<form>
<fields name="groupOPTIONS">
<fieldset name="Options">
<field
type="text"
name="motitle"
id="motitle"
label="Title"
description="MY TEXT FIELD DESCRIPTION"
maxLength="255" />
<field
type="textarea"
name="modescription"
id="modescription"
label="Description"
description="MY TEXT FIELD DESCRIPTION"
rows="15"
cols="5"
maxLength="255" />
</fieldset>
</fields>
</form>
Models\item.php
jimport('joomla.application.component.modelitem');
class MagicObjectsModelItem extends JModelForm {
public function getForm($data = array(), $loadData = true) {
// Get the form 'items'
$form = $this->loadForm('com_magicobjects.item', 'item',
array('control' => 'jform', 'load_data' => $loadData));
if (empty($form)) {
return false;
}
return $form;
}
protected function loadFormData() {
// Check the session for previously entered form data.
$data = JFactory::getApplication()->getUserState('com_magicobjects.item.edit.data', array());
if (empty($data)) {
$data = $this->getDBItem(1);
}
return $data;
}
public function getDBItem($pk) {
//Obtain JDatabase static connection
$oDb = JFactory::getDbo();
$oQuery = $oDb->getQuery(true);
$sValueToMatch = $pk;
$oQuery
->select(array('mid', 'name', 'keyword', 'description'))
->from('#__mytable')
->where('mid = "' . $sValueToMatch . '"')
->order('mid ASC');
$oDb->setQuery($oQuery);
return $oDb->loadObjectList();
}
views\item\view.html.php
jimport('joomla.application.component.view');
function display($tpl = null) {
// Initialise variables.
$this->form = $this->get('Form');
$this->item = $this->get('Item');
//Display the view
parent::display($tpl);
}
Views\item\tmpl\default.php
foreach ($this->form->getFieldset('Options') as $field) {
echo $field->label;
echo $field->input;
}
By performing a print_r() on item I can see I have the data, but I need to insert the data into the fields shown.
In case this it's still a problem because the form definition is defining a <fields /> group.
This mean that the form fields will be output as follows:
input type="text" name="[groupOPTIONS][motitle]"
based on the example you give above. If you remove the fields grouping it will probably work. It's annoying though as certain JForm methods only work on groups...
You would probably need to change the way in which the data was being passed into the form if you wanted to keep the fields grouping (e.g. by overloading getItem).
Hope that makes sense...
In Joomla 3, the JForm::bind() method appears to accept either an object or associative array as a parameter. All of the object/array fields are then stored in a protected JRegistry type data member called JForm::$data.
When you're trying to display a form field (by calling JForm::getInput()), the call stack is as follows
JForm::getInput() -> JForm::getField() -> JForm::loadField() -> JForm::getValue()
JForm::getValue() returns a value from the (aforementioned JRegistry) JForm::$data data member. The JForm::loadField() method also passes the default value (defined by the form) to the JForm::getValue() method in case a value in the JForm::$data variable doesn't exist.
In terms of doing this inside a model, you might want to generate a object or assoc array from a database query or table (ensuring that the field names correspond with the field names defined in the form xml) and then pass it to JForm::bind() as a parameter. However, if you are using JModelForm, I think you should only override JModelForm::loadFormData() to pass the object/assoc array to the loaded form.
See : libraries/joomla/form/form.php
Hope that helps :)
Instead of $oDb->loadObjectList(); use $oDb->loadAssoc(); in your getDBItem() function.
Check this - http://docs.joomla.org/Accessing_the_database_using_JDatabase/1.5
Check this also - joomla loadformdata
Hope this will work.
I have a Zend_Form with a dropdown field.
When the user sets a value in the url this one should be selected as default value in this dropdown.
So what i do at the moment is this:
$parlang = $this->getRequest()->getParam('lang');
if($parlang){
$this->view->filterForm->getElement('ddLanguage')->setValue($parlang);
}
if ($this->getRequest()->isPost()) {
if($this->view->filterForm->isValid($_POST)){
...
...
...
No i want to check if the value of the variable is even a valid value for the dropdown? How can i check this in coorporation with the form validation. Yes i can check the variable against a array or so but this seems to be "fighting against the framework".
So what is the Zend way to do such a thing?
Edit:
My final solution for all who are interested, is:
$parlang = $this->getRequest()->getParam('lang');
if($parlang){
$ddLanguage = $this->view->filterForm->ddLanguage;
if($ddLanguage->isValid($parlang)){
$ddLanguage->setValue($parlang);
$language = $parlang;
}
}
I ran a quick test and it looks like one method you can use is Zend_Form_Element_Select::getMultiOption() to check if the language exists in the select values.
<?php
$parlang = $this->getRequest()->getParam('lang');
if ($parlang) {
$el = $this->view->filterForm->getElement('ddLanguage');
// attempt to get the option
// Returns null if no such option exists, otherwise returns a
// string with the display value for the option
if ($el->getMultiOption($parlang) !== null) {
$el->setValue($parlang);
}
}
If your Multiselect element contains a list of country, I would just populate a default in your element value according to the one in the URL.
In order to do so, you could create a custom Zend_Form_Element as follow:
class My_Form_Element_SelectCountry extends Zend_Form_Element_Select
{
protected $_translatorDisabled = true;
public function init()
{
$locale = Zend_Registry::get('Zend_Locale');
if (!$locale) {
throw new Exception('No locale set in registry');
}
$countries = Zend_Locale::getTranslationList('territory', $locale, 2);
unset($countries['ZZ']);
// fetch lang parameter and set US if there is no param
$request = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getRequest();
$lang = $request->getParam('lang', 'US');
// sort your country list
$oldLocale = setlocale(LC_COLLATE, '0');
setlocale(LC_COLLATE, 'en_US');
asort($countries, SORT_LOCALE_STRING);
setlocale(LC_COLLATE, $oldLocale);
// check weither the lang parameter is valid or not and add it to the list
if (isset($countries[$lang])) {
$paramLang = array($lang => $countries[$lang]);
$countries = array_merge($paramLang, $countries);
}
$this->setMultiOptions($countries);
}
}
You get the idea from this custom form.
If what you're trying to do isn't a Multiselect field filled by a country list but a list of language instead, then the logic is the same, you just need to change the call to the static method Zend_Locale::getTranslationList()and grab whatever information you need.
One more thing, if you just want a single element in your Multiselect element, then go for a Zend_Form_Element_Hidden.
It's a lot of "if" but I can't understand how looks like your Multiselect element exactly from your question.
Now let's take a look on the validation side, when you're using a Multiselect element, Zend_Framework automatically adds an InArray validator, which means that you don't have anything to do to check weither the data sent are correct or not. isValid is going to do it for you.
Weither a user let the default parameter and everything will be fine, or he modifies/deletes this parameter and the default parameter (en_US in this case, see code above) is going to be set as a default value for the Multiselect field.
To answer your last question, no it's not against the framework to check a variable set by a user and compare it with an array (from getTranslationList()for example). I would say it's even the recommended way to do things.