Validating multiple fields with the same name - cakephp

Question

I have a view file that looks like this:
<?php
echo $this->Form->create('ModelName');
echo $this->Form->input('ModelName.0.firstField');
echo $this->Form->input('ModelName.0.secondField');
echo $this->Form->input('ModelName.1.firstField');
echo $this->Form->input('ModelName.1.secondField');
echo $this->Form->end();
?>
My question is, how do I validate this data? I'm not saving, so it seems pointless to me to call the save or saveAll methods. I just want to validate the data before I process it and display the results to the user.
What happens currently using:
<?php
if ($this->request->is('post')) {
$this->ModelName->set($this->request->data);
if ($this->ModelName->validates()) {
echo $this->Session->setFlash('Success');
} else {
echo $this->Session->setFlash('Failure');
}
}
?>
Is it succeeds all the time even when I'm putting in data that should definitely fail.
I have also tried:
<?php
if ($this->request->is('post')) {
if ($this->ModelName->validateMany($this->request->data)) {
echo $this->Session->setFlash('Success');
} else {
echo $this->Session->setFlash('Failure');
}
}
?>
And that return success all the time as well, but that may be due to the fact that I don't know how to properly use validateMany.

Answer 1

Model::set is used for assigning a single set/record of data to the current instance of the Model. So it may be possible that you are only validating the first set of data in your POST data. You would have to iterate through each record in the POST data, Model::set it to the Model data, and then call Model::validates.
Instead of the above method or Model::validateMany, try using Model::saveAll without actually saving.
http://api20.cakephp.org/class/model#method-ModelsaveAll
validate: Set to false to disable validation, true to validate each record before saving, 'first' to validate all records before any are saved (default), or 'only' to only validate the records, but not save them.
<?php
if ($this->request->is('post')) {
if ($this->ModelName->saveAll($this->request->data, array('validate' => 'only'))) {
echo $this->Session->setFlash('Success');
} else {
echo $this->Session->setFlash('Failure');
}
}
?>