unique validation is not working in Update case in YII? - php

Question

I have applied unique validation for Employee Code. it is working fine for Add Emp case. But i am not getting why it is not working in case of Update, here is the code i have used for this:
My rule method is :
public function rules()
{
return array(
array('is_active', 'numerical', 'integerOnly'=>true),
array('first_name, last_name, employee_code, username, password, role,joining_date,', 'required','on'=>array('create','update')),
array('employee_code', 'numerical', 'integerOnly'=>true),
array('employee_code', 'unique','on'=>array('create','update')),
array('employee_code', 'length', 'min' => 4, 'max'=>4, 'message'=>Yii::t("translation", "{attribute} is too short.")),
array('username','email'),
array('username','valid_username','on'=>array('create')),
array('username', 'required','on'=>array('forgotPassword')),
array('currentPassword, newPassword, newPasswordRepeat', 'required','on'=>array('change')),
array('newPassword', 'compare', 'compareAttribute'=>'newPasswordRepeat','on'=>array('change'),'message'=>'New and Confirm Password do not match.'),
array('verifyCode', 'captcha', 'allowEmpty'=>!CCaptcha::checkRequirements(),'on'=>array('forgotPassword')),
array('joining_date', 'safe'),
array('years', 'safe'),
array('user_id, first_name, last_name, employee_code, username, password, role, joining_date, pending_regular_leave, pending_medical_leave, allocated_regular_leave, allocated_medical_leave, is_active', 'safe', 'on'=>'search'),
);
Please can someone identify where i am wrong. Please help me.

Answer 1

Looks like that the value of field "employee code" puts in form field and you are trying to save it. And it is not unique, and it is not save.
Anyway, you can:
$employee->validate(array('/* Here is list of attributes, except employee code */'));
or:
$employee->save(array('/* Here is list of attributes, except employee code */'));
in update action.
You can also delete scenario in validation rule:
array('employee_code', 'unique','on'=>array('insert');

Answer 2

When you update record it already exists in the database and the value you are going to validate already exists too. This is why when you do update you should exclude the record you are going to update from the check. Else the check will fail with the message like this
Employee Code "some value" has already been taken.
For example (new rule with criteria)
array(
'employee_code',
'unique',
'criteria' => array(
'condition' => 'user_id != :id',
'params' => array(':id' => $this->user_id),
),
'on' => array('create', 'update'),
),
I assume that user_id is the primary key.
Formally you might want to have different scenarios for update and create because you do not need any additional checks for the create scenario. Single scenario works as well but you might want to do something like this
array(
'employee_code',
'unique',
'on' => array('create'),
),
array(
'employee_code',
'unique',
'criteria' => array(
'condition' => 'user_id != :id',
'params' => array(':id' => $this->user_id),
),
'on' => array('update'),
),
P.S. As mentioned in one of the comments you might want to use insert instead of create because by default the scenario for newly created model is insert. This is more commonly used name.