Question

Array values in form are always a problem for form validation in CI. Now I’ve to input multiple values and those array values are to be stored in DB. Now the user can keep some fields blanks by mistake as shown below in the links:

Input values.

Values in the array on submission.

I used this tutorial to add input boxes on + button click. On submission the blank values will be truncated and then not null array values will added to database. I tried this using a sample program in native PHP but could not implement it in CI.

I used the following code in native PHP to insert values in DB truncating null values:

<?php
    include 'sql_connect.php';
    $str = array();
    for($i=0;$i<count($_POST["txtSiteName"]);$i++)
    {
        $str[] = $_POST["txtSiteName"][$i];
    }
    $str = array_filter($str, function($item) {if(!is_null($item)) return $item;});
    foreach($str as $loop_str)
    {
        $arr_str[] = $loop_str;
    }
    for($k = 0; $k<count($arr_str);$k++)
    {
        mysql_query("INSERT INTO sitename (name) VALUES ('".$arr_str[$k]."')") or die(mysql_error());
    }
    print_r($arr_str);
?>

How can I achieve this in CI ?
I tried to use callback function but the array value is not being passed to the callback function.

EDIT:

The below code shows my callback function :

On entering 3 urls it is called 3 times. Is that normal ?
Also my array_walk’s callback function is not working. Calling a callback function inside another callback function is not possible ?

public function null_check()
{
    $urls = $this->input->post('link_name');
    array_walk($urls, 'prepurl');
    var_dump($urls);
}

prepurl function:

public function prepurl($item, $key)
{
    $item = "http://".$item;
}

Answer 1

Your question is not clear to me but since you mentioned to validate multiple text boxes. So if your text boxes are something like this

<input type="text" name="txtSiteName[]" />
<input type="text" name="txtSiteName[]" />

then simply you can use

$this->form_validation->set_rules('txtSiteName[]', 'Site Name', 'required|xss_clean');

to validate all the text boxes against null or empty.

Update (TO pass an argument in to the callback)

$this->form_validation->set_rules('txtSiteName[]', 'Site Name', 'callback_sitename_check[' . $this->input->post('txtSiteName') . ']');

function sitename_check($str, $sitenames) {
    // $sitenames will be your textboxe's array
}

The first argument is used by CodeIgniter by default so second argument is your parameter. Also take a look at insert_batch() to insert multiple records.

Also you can do this like

$this->form_validation->set_rules('txtSiteName[]', 'Site Name', 'callback_sitename_check');

function sitename_check() {
    $sitenames =  $this->input->post('txtSiteName');
}

Update: (For array_walk)

array_walk($urls, array($this, 'prepurl'));