Question

I am creating a User Model using Codeigniter and php-activerecord and the wiki says I can use ‘on’ => ‘create’ to have a validation only run when a new record is created, like this,

static $validates_presence_of = array(
    array('title', 'message' => 'cannot be blank on a book!', 'on' => 'create')
);

It also states that we have access to “save”, “update” and “delete”…

None of these are working for me though and I can figure out why, here is my code,

// Validations
static $validates_presence_of = array(
array('email', 'message' => 'Please enter a valid email address.'),
array('password', 'message' => 'Password must be provided.', 'on' => 'create')
);

I want to set it up like this so that when a user updates their profile, they can leave their password blank to keep their current one.

I would appreciate any help or guidance! Thanks!

Answer 1

The reason for this is most likely because it’s not been implemented.

Relevant classes are lib/Model.php and lib/Validations.php

From a purely abstract standpoint, you would need to track the mode of operation between save and create. To do this, I created a public property (public $validation_mode) within lib/Model.php and set that property to ‘create’ or ‘save’ in private methods Model::insert() and Model::update() respectively. These values match the ‘on’ property you are trying to use.

Then within lib/Validations.php, I modified the following methods:

Validations::validates_presence_of()

public function validates_presence_of($attrs)
{
    $configuration = array_merge(self::$DEFAULT_VALIDATION_OPTIONS, array('message' => Errors::$DEFAULT_ERROR_MESSAGES['blank'], 'on' => 'save'));

    foreach ($attrs as $attr)
    {
        $options = array_merge($configuration, $attr);
        $this->record->add_on_blank($options[0], $options['message'], $options);
    }
}

Errors::add_on_blank()

public function add_on_blank($attribute, $msg, $options = array())
{
    if (!$msg)
        $msg = self::$DEFAULT_ERROR_MESSAGES['blank'];

    if (($value = $this->model->$attribute) === '' || $value === null)
            {
                    if(array_key_exists('on', $options))
                    {
                        if($options['on'] == $this->model->validation_mode)
                        {
                            $this->add($attribute, $msg);
                        }
                    } else {                            
                        $this->add($attribute, $msg);
                    }
            }
}

What this does basically is passes ALL the $options specified in your model (including the ‘on’ property) down to the Errors::add_on_blank() method where it now has enough information to differentiate between ‘on’ => ‘create’ and the default (‘on’ => ‘save’). Using the public $validation_mode property from the Model class ($this->model->validation_mode), we can determine what the current mode of operation is and whether or not we wish to continue adding the error message or skip it this time around.

Obviously you would want to document any changes you make and test thoroughly. According to the documentation, all validation methods supposedly support this “common option” along side allow_null, allow_blank but again, if it’s not implemented, you will have to make it happen yourself by making these necessary changes.