How to check if the record exist using codeigniter - codeigniter

Question

I'm creating a registration form using codeigniter. I understand that there is a validation for each field in CI but what I want to do is to validate a multiple field exist.
SELECT emp_id FROM emp_record WHERE firstname = 'firstname' AND lastname = 'firstname' AND birthdate = 'firstname'
If the query above find a match I want to alert on my view page that the record already exist.
Please help.
Appreciate it. Thanks.

Answer 1

Declare a custom callback function
function _check_firstname()
{
$firstname = $this->security->xss_clean($this->input->post('firstname'));
$array = array('firstname' => $firstname, 'birthdate' => $firstname);
$result = $this->db->select('emp_id')->from('emp_record')->where($array)->get();
if($result->num_rows())
{
$this->form_validation->set_message('_check_firstname', 'Record already exists');
return false;
}else
{
return true;
}
}
Set rules including (callback__check_firstname)
$this->form_validation->set_rules('firstname', 'First Name', 'trim|required|callback__check_firstname');
Now, when you'll check validation like
if ($this->form_validation->run()){
// passes
}
else{
// not passes, so show the view again
}
In the view, if you have something like this
<?php echo form_error('firstname') ?>
This will show the error message set in the custom callback function.

Answer 2

You could use num_rows() to do such things.
By using active record you can achieve this by doing the following
$qry = $this->db->select('emp_id')->from('emp_record')
->where('firstname', $firstname)
->where('lastname', $lastname)
->where('birthdate', $birthdate)
->get();
if ($qry->num_rows() > 0)
return TRUE;
else
return FALSE;
This will return TRUE if it finds at least one row in your database or FALSE if it finds nothing.

Answer 3

some people can/may have the same firstname,lastname and birthdate
But still if you want to have it that way you could create a callback validation
here is a snippet.
public function checkinput()
{
// you may want to sanitize the input
$data['fname'] = $this->input->post('fname');
$data['lname'] = $this->input->post('fname');
$data['mname'] = $this->input->post('fname');
//your model for checking data must return TRUE or FALSE
if($this->model->method_for_checking($data))
{
this->form_validation->set_message('checkinput', 'Duplicate data exists.');
return TRUE;
}else{
return FALSE;
}
}
Now you can use it on your validation rules i.e
$this->form_validation('fname','fname',callback_checkinput);
Other options are
Extend a form validation and create a validation rule there as not
to clutter the controller
Or ,After Submitting the form before inserting the data, you can check whether it is a duplicate and do the logical things their.