CakePHP Validation Issue for dynamic fields - cakephp

Question

I have created below fields in my form-
<input type="text" id="ProductPrice1" class="small" name="data[Product][price][1]">
<input type="text" id="ProductPrice1" class="small" name="data[Product][price][2]">
<input type="text" id="ProductPrice1" class="small" name="data[Product][price][3]">
<input type="text" id="ProductPrice1" class="small" name="data[Product][price][4]">
Now I am trying to add validation for above fields by using below model function-
public function productValidates() {
$validate= array();
$validate = array(
'name'=> array(
'mustNotEmpty'=>array(
'rule' => 'notEmpty',
'message'=> __('PRODUCTS.TITLE_BLANK_ERROR',true)
)
),
'description'=> array(
'mustNotEmpty'=>array(
'rule' => 'notEmpty',
'message'=> __('PRODUCTS.DESCRIPTION_BLANK_ERROR',true)
)
),
'category_id'=> array(
'mustNotEmpty'=>array(
'rule' => 'notEmpty',
'message'=> __('PRODUCTS.SELECT_CATEGORY_ERROR',true)
)
),
);
$count = $this->data[$this->name]['total_prices'];
for($i=1; $i<= $count;$i++){
$validate['price'][$i] = array(
'1' => array(
'rule' => array('notEmpty',true),
'message' => __('PRODUCTS.PRICE_EMPTY_ERROR',true),
'last' => true
)
);
}
$this->validate = $validate;
return $this->validates();
}
But its not working.
Can you please suggest what’s the issue here?

Answer 1

I suppose that you are using cakephp 2.X
I think that the problem is the loop, instead of that add a custom validation method to check that the prices are not empty.
Here is the link to the book with an example.
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/data-validation.html#adding-your-own-validation-methods
Another solution is to make a table Prices with columns id|product_id|value, put the association in the Models, put the validation criteria of the prices into the Price Model and in the ProductController put "saveAll" instead of save.
In this case your form must be like:
<input type="text" id="ProductName" class="small" name="data[Product][name]">
<input type="text" id="ProductDescription" class="small" name="data[Product][description]">
<input type="text" id="PriceValue1" class="small" name="data[Price][0][value]">
<input type="text" id="PriceValue1" class="small" name="data[Price][1][value]">
<input type="text" id="PriceValue1" class="small" name="data[Price][2][value]">
<input type="text" id="PriceValue1" class="small" name="data[Price][3][value]">
if this does not answer your question I will need more data such as the controller and the structure of your db