Validation - checking data
It's a common requirement to have some checks on data. For example, we might not want to save a member of Employee unless the department has been entered. Thankfully, in Li3, this is quite straightforward!
Tweak the model
Open up app/models/Employees.php and replace the validation array:
<?php
namespace app\models;
class Employees extends \lithium\data\Model {
public $validates = array(
'department' => array(
array(
'notEmpty',
'required' => true,
'message' =>
'Please let us know what department this person works in.'
)
)
);
// ...
Tweak the controller
Next, edit app/controllers/EmployeesController.php and add the error checking:
<?php
// ...
public function add() {
$employee = Employees::create();
if (($this->request->data) && $employee->save($this->request->data)) {
return $this->redirect(
array('Employees::view', 'args' => array($employee->id))
);
}
$errors = $employee->errors();
return compact('employee', 'errors');
}
// ...
Notice that the errors() method is automatically populated with any validation errors, should the save operation fail.
Tweak the view
Now, we're going to modify app/views/employees/add.html.php and add some error output:
<h2>Add new member of Employees</h2>
<?php
if (count($errors) > 0) {
foreach ($errors as $error) {
?>
<p class="text-error"><?= $error[0]; ?></p>
<?php
}
}
?>
...
Then, if you try to create a user with no department, you'll see something like this:
Sweet! This will break our tests, though, so what we're going to do is update our test so it states a department.