Question

I have a controle to handle some information that can be either saved or updated on DB.

I’m using public $validation to store an array with the validation rules that would look like this:

public $validation = array(
    array(
        'field' => 'modelname[column1]',
        'label' => 'Column 1',
        'rules' => 'required'
    ),
    array(
        'field' => 'modelname[column1]',
        'label' => 'Column 2',
        'rules' => 'required'
    ),

);

and I’m using my own validation function with callbacks in this same $validation. Like this:

array(
        'field' => 'modelname[column3]',
        'label' => 'Column 3',
        'rules' => 'callback_column3|required'
    ),
    array(
        'field' => 'modelname[column4]',
        'label' => 'Column4',
        'rules' => 'callback_column4|required'
    ),

Which is handled with an action in the Controller.
The problem is that:

For add ( save ) I have to check the uniqueness of the value, that’s the function of the callback_column4 ( let’s say ) and if it’s not unique it returns false. But, I can’t return false for the edit (update) because I’m reading and editing something that’s, obviously, in the DB.

So, what should I do to distinguish the two different action when validating.

PS: I have already tried to use subarrays with the Class/action ( http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/libraries/form_validation.html#savingtoconfig ) name but I’m using a Core_Model abstraction that plays the role of calling

$this->form_validation->set_rules($this->validation);
$this->form_validation->run()

Answer 1

You could add validation rules for that input in the controller method that is calling it rather than trying to put everything in the same array. That way you can keep your public validation var for all of the other rules but just set the one that is causing issues for you independently.

You could also create two separate arrays for your validation rules and call each one for its respective method. i.e.

$this->form_validation->set_rules($this->create_validation);

and

$this->form_validation->set_rules($this->edit_validation);