CakePHP validation not working for contact form - validation

I am trying to do some very simple validation in my CakePHP contact form, but validation does not work eventhough I think I did everything necessary. Here's what I did:
I made a model like this:
class Office extends AppModel
{
var $name = 'Office';
var $useTable = false;
public $validate = array('onderwerp' => 'notEmpty');
}
(I also tried many other values for $validate from the CakePHP online manual)
In Config/bootstrap.php I made this rule for not letting CakePHP expect plural "Offices":
Inflector::rules('plural', array('rules' => array(),
'irregular' => array(),
'uninflected' => array('office')));
In OfficeController, I do this in my method contact():
$this->Office->set($this->request->data);
if($this->Office->validates()){
echo "code validates";
} else {
print_r($this->Office->validationErrors);
}
And in my Office/contact.ctp view, I have (amongst other code like starting and ending the form) this code:
$this->Form->input('onderwerp', array('label'=>false, 'size' => 60));
Now, even when I fill in the form, leaving empty the field 'onderwerp', it executes the code that should be executed when the code is executed.
When I print_r($this->request->data) or print_r($this->Office) I see that my onderwerp field is there and that it is empty (or filled when I do fill in something).
Now, when I add a public function validates() in my model and echo something there, it IS being displayed. So I'd say CakePHP knows where to find my model, and does execute my controller code. I also tried adding return parent::validates(); in my validates() function, but this also yielded no validation error, or any other error for that matter. My debug level is set to 2.
I guess I'm missing a needle in this haystack. Thanks for helping me finding it!

so drop all the inflector stuff.
and use the right model in your Form->create()
either
$this->Form->create(null)
or
$this->Form->create('Office');
and if you follow my advice to use a table less model with schema you will also have more power over input creation and validation.

Related

CakePHP - Custom validation for linked model only in certain parent models

I have a generic Image model that is linked to by other models that need to have images attached. In most places the image is not required and we have fallbacks in case there is no image uploaded, but in a few particular cases I need to force the upload of an image for the form to validate, but I'm not sure how to validate that through another model. For instance, my model is something like this:
class Person extends AppModel
{
public $belongsTo = array(
'Image' => array(
'className' => 'Image',
'foreignKey' => 'image_id',
'type' => 'LEFT',
)
);
public $validate = array(
...
);
}
The Person model contains some text fields that folks have to enter as well as a redirect_url field. If a redirect is set the page logic will skip trying to load anything and will redirect directly to that URL. But, if it is not set then a bunch of other fields are required. I've got this working properly using a custom validation method in my Person model, but image_id field is not explicitly checked by the Person model since it is just a pointer to the Image model.
Can I somehow add a custom/dynamic validation rule to Image in this instance to have it check if Person.redirect_url is set? The only thing I can figure to do is to add this to my beforeSave() and basically manually check it using $this->data but I'd like to do this the "right" way if it's possible, hooking into the Validation class.
I tried a few variations on using something like this, with no luck thus far:
$this->Person->Image->validate['id']=array(...);
Edit:
Here is what I've tried doing, which kind of works:
public function beforeValidate($options=array()) {
parent::beforeValidate($options);
if(empty($this->data['redirect_url'])) {
if (!isset($this->data['Image']['filepath']) {
$this->invalidate('Image.filepath', 'Custom error message.');
return false;
}
}
}
This lets me invalidate the field without having to add extra code elsewhere, but when printing out the form field on the front end, I end up getting a generic "This file is required" error instead of my "Custom error message". I think this might be because file uploads are handled by a plugin that spirits them away to S3 instead of the local filesystem and it's getting overridden somewhere up the chain.

Advanced Validation with Lithium PHP Framework

I'm building a pretty complex and dynamic form via the Lithium PHP framework.
I've got the form working and saving to MongoDB with little problem. But I am having trouble with validation.
Simple validations (such as checking if a field is not empty or is numeric) are working fine. But I have to do a few complex validations that rely on a number of fields in the form.
For example, I have a form where a user can enter a question and then enter an unlimited number of possible answers for this question. The field ID for each answer is listed such as "answer_1", "answer_2", "answer_3", etc. The user can add an unlimited number of answers. This happens via some fancy JavaScript that inserts extra elements to the form on the client side.
At the validation level, I want to make sure that every answer which was added is not null.
I would like to do this using the "traditional" Validator functionality built within Lithium. I am also doing this at the Model level, not the Controller level (note - I have a workaround to solve this on the Controller level, but would rather do it the "right" way at the Model)
The problem, as far as I can tell, is that you can only pass a single value to the validator rule. I just need to pass back ALL values in the form to the validator. If I could do that, I would be golden. The pseudo-code for what I'm looking to do looks like this:
Validator::add('CorrectTest', function(&$value, $format = null, array $options = array()) {
foreach ($_data as $key => $value) {
if (stristr($key, "answer_")) {
if ($value == "") {
return false;
}
}
}
return true;
});
This code doesn't work, because the $_data value is not present. If I could just figure out a way to get a fully-populated "$_data" object into the Validator function, I think I could get this to work.
Thanks in advance for the help
Take a look at what's inside $options. You should have a 'values' key in there that has all of the values from the form.
So try
$_data = $options['values'];

Custom Magento Module

So im creating a module in the backend, I have a shell module created (items in admin top menu and a page to visit.) basically I want to have an input field that the admin can type a number into then click a button "add", this will insert a row into an existing table in the database.
$connection = Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getConnection('core_write');
$connection->beginTransaction();
$fields = array();
$fields['name']= 'andy';
$connection->insert('test', $fields);
$connection->commit();
I have a table called "test" within my database. If I put the above code into my Controller file, it successfully adds a row to the database when i visit the admin page. But i need to allow the user to input the data that is inserted.
Would I have to move that code into the Model and somehow send the input data to the Model and let that do the work? or not. If this is correct could someone point me to a good place to research sending data to models? (if thats even possible)
iv tried lots of tutorials but they are all way to big for what I need, I dont need to display anything, I just need to have an input box and a save button.
EDIT
i have created a file block/Adminhtml/Form/Edit/Form.php which contains the following . . .
class AndyBram_Presbo_Block_Adminhtml_Form_Edit_Form extends Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Form
{
protected function _prepareForm()
{
$form = new Varien_Data_Form(
array(
'id' => 'edit_form',
'action' => $this->getUrl('*/*/test'),
'method' => 'post',
)
);
$form->setUseContainer(true);
$this->setForm($form);
$fieldset = $form->addFieldset('display', array(
'legend' => 'Display Settings',
'class' => 'fieldset-wide'
));
$fieldset->addField('label', 'text', array(
'name' => 'label',
'label' => 'Label',
));
if (Mage::registry('andybram_presbo')) {
$form->setValues(Mage::registry('andybram_presbo')->getData());
}
return parent::_prepareForm();
}
}
then in my controller i have 2 functions like below . . .
public function indexAction()
{
$this->loadLayout();
$this->_addContent($this->getLayout()->createBlock('presbo/adminhtml_form_edit_form'));
}
public function testAction()
{
echo 'form data here';
$this->loadLayout();
$this->renderLayout();
}
the form is displayed successfully but there is no button to send or say 'do an action'
Further Edit
i have successfully added a submit button to the form that successfully goes to the testAction and echo' "form data here".
how do i then access the data,
iv added the below line
$postData = $this->getRequest()->getPost();
now if i echo $postData, it just puts "array"
if i echo $postData[0] it doesnt put anything just a blank page
any ideas or pointers?
Magento is built as an MVC framework, thus you're right - you need to pass data from controller to the model, and do not do any DB updates directly in a controller's code. The best source for an example is the own Magento code - you can take any controller action, which saves data to DB to see, how it is done. E.g. check app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/controllers/NotificationController.php method markAsReadAction().
There you can see, that:
Data is retrieved from the request by calling
$this->getRequest()->getParam('id') - actually this is the answer
to the question, how to get the submitted data
Data is set to model, and then saved to the DB via call to the
$model->setIsRead(1)->save()
It is strongly encouraged to follow the same approach of working with models. This makes codes much better and easier to support.
Note, that "M" letter of "MVC" architecture in Magento is represented by two layers: Models and Resource Models.
Models:
Contain business logic of an entity. E.g. adding ten items to a
Shopping Cart model triggers a discount rule
Represented by classes with a general name of <Your_Module>_Model_<Model_Name>
If need to work with DB, then extend Mage_Core_Model_Abstract and have a Resource
Model, which is responsible for DB communication
Do not need to have basic save/load methods to be implemented, as the ancestor
Mage_Core_Model_Abstract already has all that routines ready to use
Created via call to Mage::getModel('<your_module>/<model_name>')
Resource Models:
Serve as DB abstraction layer, thus save/load data from DB, perform
other DB queries
Extend Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Db_Abstract in order to communicate with DB
Represented by classes with a general name of
<Your_Module>_Model_Resource_<Model_Name>
Automatically created by a corresponding model, when it needs to communicate with DB
So, in a controller you care about creating Models only. Resource Models are created by a Model automatically.
And, according to everything said above, your controller should look like:
public function testAction()
{
$model = Mage::getModel('your_module/your_model');
$model->setName('andy');
$model->save();
}
You can download a fully working example of the thing you need here.
There can be several variations to the code provided, depending on your specific case. But it represents a general approach to implementing the thing you want.

Codeigniter Datamapper not running get rules on fields with NULL values

I'm using Datamapper v1.8.2 with Codeigniter v2.1.2 and have a "get" rule that doesn't seem to run on fields with NULL values. Here's the model:
class Page extends Datamapper {
public $validation = array(
'name' => array(
'rules' => array('required'),
'get_rules' => array('get_page_name')
)
);
function _get_page_name($field)
{
$this->$field = 'TESTING '.$this->id;
}
}
Example code:
$page = new Page();
foreach ($page->get() as $p) echo $p->name;
When the table field name has any non-null value including an empty string it works fine outputting something like TESTING 358, but when the value is NULL (which is the default value for this field), it outputs nothing. There is no difference using get_iterated().
I guess I could work around this by changing the default value, but I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or missed something in the documentation, or maybe it's a bug? Does anyone know what the issue is?
Also, if someone could point me to the proper thread in the CI forums for Datamapper 1.8.2 support that would be great, I'm trying to find it and getting lost in a maze of links to threads for old versions of DM.
You need to add the allow_null to the get_rules array to make this work. I'm not sure about the intent of the creator but this is how get_rules are implemented (however i don't see it mentioned in the docs).

Accessing data in kohana validation

i'll try and be as clear as possible.
I'm working on some form validation using the wonderful kohana framework. However i have come at a crossroads and not sure whether the way i have taken is a wise choice.
Basically, i have a date selector using several select boxes (i toyed with the idea of using javascript date pickers but the select boxes proved to be more suitable for my purpose) and a date field in a database. I wanted to concatenate these select boxes into the date field so it can be checked to make sure its valid.
protected $_rules = array(
'mydate' => array(
'not_empty' => NULL,
'date' => NULL,
),
);
Now to me, it makes most sense to include the validation in the model, since that's where the data layer is in the MVC pattern, so i decided to create some class attributes named $_rules, $_filters and $_callbacks, each set as protected and with my basic rules applied. And then a function in the model that sets up a validation object using these attributes and returning it to whatever controller is calling it, then the controller can just run the validation and the job is done.
My problem comes when i want to concat these select boxes, to me it makes most sense to make a custom filter and pass in the post data, but with the filters rules and callbacks being attributes, i can't add any variables to them. My current solution is to manually add the extra filter in when the validation setup function is being run something similar to this:
public function setupValid($post) {
$this->_filters['mydatefield'] = array(
'MyClass::MyConcat' => array($post);
);
//creates a validation object and adds all the filters rules and callbacks
}
But i don't feel this is the cleanest solution, i'm probably nit picking as the solution works the way i require it to. However i'm not sure whether a filter was ever intended to do such a thing as this, or whether this should be a callback as the callback has access to the array by default, but then again callbacks are called last, which would mean i couldn't apply any rules like, 'not_empty' (not important in this case since they are pre populated select boxes, but might be in another case)
So i guess my question is, am i using filters as they were intended to be used?
I hope i've managed to explain this clearly.
Thanks
you need to keep in mind that you should only validate fields inside the $_rules that are very important to your database or business logic.
so for example if you would try to setup other form somewhere else in your app or you would provide a restfull api for your app, validation of the field 'day_field_(that_doesnt_exists_in_the_database_and_is_used_to_privide_a_better_ux_in_this_one_form)' => array('not_empty' => NULL) will give you a hard time to do that.
so i suggest you to keep your $_rules like they are now and provide some logic to your values() method:
// MODEL:
public function values($values)
{
if ( ! empty($values['day']) && ! empty($values['month']) && ! empty($values['year']))
{
$values['mydate'] = $values['year'].'-'.$values['month'].'-'.$values['day'];
}
return parent::values($values);
}
// CONTROLLER:
if ($orm->values($form['form_array'])->check())
{
$orm->save();
}
else
{
$this->template->errors = $orm->validate()->errors('validation');
}

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