So my question is pretty much like the title. I have a form object called StudentApplicationForm. This uses some elements called grade_element_form.ctp, schools_element_form.ctp, student_element_form.ctp and guardian_element_form.ctp. All have their respective inputs built and sent to my StudentApplicationForm Model when the form is submitted. I want to use the Grade, School, Student and Guardian objects to validate the data before saving their respective information in their respective tables in the database.
I am able to build the appropriate arrays to be sent to the models of each of the objects of the form and save them to the database. Now I want to make sure they are validated before saving though. Is the best way to approach this by using the:
$this->ModelName->set($the_data)
if($this-ModelName->validate()){
//true
}else{
//false
}
As shown here: cakephp form validation
If the models are related, you can use $this->Model->saveAll() or $this->Model->saveAssociated() to save them all at once, by putting all the data in a single array, properly formatted, and saving that.
If they are not related, then you need to be using transactions, http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/transactions.html. With transactions, there's no need to call $this->ModelName->validate() before saving. Start the transaction, try to save each one, and if one of them fails, rollBack, and all the changes you attempted after you started the transaction will not be in the database. If everything succeeds, commit it.
Example:
$dataSource = $this->Model1->getDataSource();
$dataSource->begin();
if(!$this->Model1->save($array1))
{
$dataSource->rollback();
$this->Session->setFlash('There was an error saving model 1');
return;
}
//Continue the pattern for the other models...
//If all the saves succeeded then...
$dataSource->commit();
Related
Is there an easy way to save a recordset, i mean multiple records, but only the "new ones"?
I have a table users and a users form in the view. First field you must enter is passport number, so if user already exists in database the rest of the form will be auto completed and disabled to prevent changes but if passport dont exist then you have to enter all data. As anyone can change those existing users data controls from the browser even if they are disabled, i want to make sure only new records are saved in database. First of all i thought i could find again in database and delete existing users from recordset before save, but i wonder if there is a more elegant approach.
Ty in advance.
I write this here, cause comments are too short:
Thank you for your answer, André. I'm sorry if i didnt explain perfectly, but the form is done by disabling all controls except passport and if passport dont exist (i check it on passport focusout) then the rest of controls are set to enabled. I mean, that is already done. The question was only about the saving.
The validation method you talk about, well i'm actually validating all the controls in the form and i must disable the 'unique' rule so a user can link an existing user to the current bill, otherwise it will fail validation on submit and it wont allow the user to proceed (i did this because it happened to me when testing). The actual setting is much more complicated: the form belongs to a model (bills) which is associated with 4 other models and 2 of those relationships are many to many, bills_users and bills_clients, where users are the persons who do the job and clients pay for it, but I was trying to make the question easier. Anyway, what I am looking for is, in fact, some kind of saving setting which I can't find. In documentation I found "When converting belongsToMany data, you can disable the new entity creation, by using the onlyIds option. When enabled, this option restricts belongsToMany marshalling to only use the _ids key and ignore all other data." The first half of the sentence was promising, but the explanation says different, and I actually tried it without success.
First:
Is there an easy way to save a recordset, i mean multiple records, but only the "new ones"?
Yes there is you can validate it in model, something like this:
public function buildRules(RulesChecker $rules)
{
$rules->add($rules->isUnique('passportNumber'));
return $rules;
}
This will prevent to save a duplicate passport number register, but you can different.
I have a table users and a users form in the view. First field you must enter is passport number, so if user already exists in database the rest of the form will be auto completed and disabled to prevent changes but if passport dont exist then you have to enter all data.
There is two different ways to do this:
First you have your form, you develop an ajax function when you fill the first field (passport number) this ajax function do a request to your controller to search for a passport with that number if find something get data and fill others fields and turn them just readable, else just nothing and let user fill the fields by himself
second add a step-by-step where you first do a form to try find by pass number, user fill this only field with a number then submit, on submit this search for a record, if find fill the entire next step fields, else the next step will be the rest of form with the fields to be filled.
This may help you too: https://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/orm/validation.html
Tell me how you decided to do :)
This is a design question.
I'm trying to build a booking system in cakephp3.
I've never done something like this with cake before.
I thought the best way might be to -- as the post title suggests -- build up an entity over several forms/actions.
Something like choose location -> enter customer details -> enter special requirements -> review full details and pay
So each of those stages becomes an action within my booking controller. The view for each action submits its content to the next action in the chain, and i use patch entity with the request data, and send the result to the new action's view.
I've started to wonder if this is a good way to do it. One significant problem is that the data from each of the previous actions has to be stored in hidden fields so that it can be resubmitted with the new data from the current action.
I want the data from previous actions to be visible in a read only fashion so I've used the entity that i pass to the view to fill an HTML table. That's nice and it works fine but having to also store that same data in hidden fields is not a very nice way to do it.
I hope this is making sense!
Anyway, I thought I'd post on here for some design guidance as i feel like there is probably a better way to do this. I have considered creating temporary records in the database and just passing the id but i was hoping I wouldn't have to.
Any advice here would be very much appreciated.
Cheers.
I would just store the entity in the DB and then proceed with your other views, getting data from the DB. Pseudo:
public function chooseLocation() {
$ent = new Entitiy();
patchEntity($ent,$this->request->data);
if save entity {
redirect to enterCustomerDetails($ent[id]);
}
}
public function enterCustomerDetails($id) {
$ent = $this->Modelname->get($id);
// patch, save, redirect again ...
}
Here's what I am trying to accomplish:
A user fills out a form, saves a record. At some later date they wish to "clone" this record, but may want to make a few tweaks. This "clone" functionality should direct them to a form that is pre-filled with the previous record's data so that they can review it, edit as needed, and submit it as a new record.
What I'm trying:
I've modified my add() function to accept a parameters:
function add($cloneid = NULL)
Then created a Clone link that sends them to siteurl/model/add/id_to_clone
Then, I get the data from that model:
$clone_source = $this->Model->findById($cloneid);
$this->data['Model']['field1'] = $clone_source['Model']['field1'];
and so on. Based on Google searching and other posts, this should work. But what actually happens is that upon clicking the 'Clone' link, the user is directed and the form submits itself immediately (failing to save the record, since it fails validation) and the user never actually sees the form.
What am I doing wrong? (Also I should note, there are relational models present, but I don't think this should be the cause of any problems...I hope).
Forms are pre-populated using the $this->request->data array.
In order for your form to be populated you will need to set some data to the request.
So you'll be better off with the following.
$this->request->data = $this->Model->findById($id);
I am having problems saving database records using Linq in visual studio 2010 and sql server 2008.
My problem is that when I am editing some records I sometimes check the original database record for validation purposes, only the original entry seems to be updated in real time - I.e. it is already exactly the same as the edited record, before I have submitted the changes!
Could anyone suggest an effective method of coping with this? I have tried using a 2nd database connection or a 2nd data repository to call the original record from the db but it appears to be already changed when I debug it.
public void SaveobjectEdit(object objectToEdit)
{
object originalObject = GetobjectById(objectToEdit.Id);
if (originalObject.objectStatus != objectToEdit.objectStatus)
{
originalObject.objectStatus = objectToEdit.objectStatus;
}
SaveChanges();
}
The save changes just calls _db.SubmitChanges(); by the way
Has no one got any ideas for the above question?
I hope I was clear - for validation purposes I would like to compare an original database record with one that I am editing. The problem is that when I edit a record and then attempt to retrieve the original record before saving - the original record is exactly the same as the edited record.
If you're trying to retrieve the original record in code, from the same 'context' using the same access method, then it will contain the updated object. Rather than ask why you're doing this or what you're trying to achieve, I'll instead explain how I understand the data context / object context to work (in a very loose and vague fashion).
The context is something like an in-memory representation of your database, where everything is lazy-loaded. When you instantiate the context you're given an object which represents your data model (of course it may not be a 1-1 representation, and can contain various abstractions). Nothing is loaded into the context until necessary; any queries you write stay as queries until you peer in their results. When you access an item (e.g. GetobjectById(objectToEdit.Id)) the item is loaded into the context from the database and you can get and set its properties at your leisure.
Now, the important part: When you access an item, if it has already been loaded into the context then that in-memory object is returned. The context doesn't care about checking changes made; the changes won't be persisted to the database until you submit, but they remain in memory.
The way to refresh the in-memory objects is to call the Refresh method on the context. Try this test:
using (var db = new MyObjectContext())
{
var item = db.Items.First();
item.Name = "testing this thing";
Console.WriteLine(db.Shifts.First().Name);
db.Refresh(System.Data.Objects.RefreshMode.StoreWins, db.Items);
Console.WriteLine(db.Shifts.First().Name);
}
I believe this pattern makes a lot of sense and I'm not sure it could work any other way. Consider this:
foreach (var item in db.Items)
{
item.Name = "test";
}
Assert(db.Items.All(item => item.Name == "test"));
Would you want the Assert to fail? Should those items be reloaded? I don't believe so. I'm looking at the items in my context, not in the database. I'm not checking whether items in the database have been updated, but instead that I've updated all the items in the context of my code.
This is a good reason why I don't use MyObjectContext db - it is not a 'db' or a database connection. It's a context within which I can change whatever I want, so I name it such: MyObjectContext context.
for example i've got a form with some input fields(every form and it's inputs with validation rules are stored in database).
Every input got it's own OnChange() which posts json (i.e. new value, input element name, ...) to controller for validation, if validation passes the new value must be saved somewhere until user clicks submit button, which will save all data to database table.
And here i'd like to ask, what this special place between ui and database can be ?
p.s.
also if user closes browser/form the next time he'll come back i need to ask him if he would like to start from an empty form or fill form with values he previously entered there.
Thank You !
Cookies or intermediary database table would work for this case.
for an intermediary database like that, you could use something like MongoDB, it is really easy to get it started, you just work with the classes you have, don't need to setup any schema, you just save the objects
http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Driver+Tutorial
If you are submitting the entire form at the end, why can't you just store the values at that time? Is this a multi-page form(s)? Why not allow the database records to be partially filled? You could always add a bit column to mark the record as complete or incomplete. This would be much simpler than duplicating your table structure.