Question

I have a form with two input text fields:

<input id="ModelName_test_0" name="ModelName[test][0]" type="text">
<input id="ModelName_test_1" name="ModelName[test][1]" type="text">

These input fields get generated with the following commands:

<?php echo $form->textField($model,'test[0]'); ?>
<?php echo $form->textField($model,'test[1]'); ?>

Now, when I submit the form I see the values in the POST request. However, when the form submit fails then I can not get the values back into the input fields. Printing the model it shows that there are no values for $test; – is this because $test is an array in the form?

Even after the validation all values are still assigned to the variables:

if($model->validate()) {
   echo "<pre>";
   print_r($_POST);
   return;
}

This returns:

[ModelName] => Array  
        (
            [test] => Array  
                (
                    [0] => myFirstInputField  
                    [1] => mySecondInputField
                )
        )

So the values are in the POST but after the failed validation they are gone and I get empty variables:

[ModelName] => Array  
        (
            [test] => 
        )

The variable test is declared safe in the validation rules.

What I want to achieve is:
If the validation fails put the entered values back into the appropriate input text fields.

Any pointers in the right direction would be helpful 🙂

Answer 1

I found this article on the yiiframework.com website which helped me solving this issue: http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/1.1/en/form.table

This is the sample code which you would put it your controller:

public function actionBatchUpdate()
{
    // retrieve items to be updated in a batch mode
    // assuming each item is of model class 'Item'
    $items=$this->getItemsToUpdate();
    if(isset($_POST['Item']))
    {
        $valid=true;
        foreach($items as $i=>$item)
        {
            if(isset($_POST['Item'][$i]))
                $item->attributes=$_POST['Item'][$i];
            $valid=$item->validate() && $valid;
        }
        if($valid)  // all items are valid
            // ...do something here
    }
    // displays the view to collect tabular input
    $this->render('batchUpdate',array('items'=>$items));
}

And this is what the view would look like:

<div class="form">
<?php echo CHtml::beginForm(); ?>
<table>
<tr><th>Name</th><th>Price</th><th>Count</th><th>Description</th></tr>
<?php foreach($items as $i=>$item): ?>
<tr>
<td><?php echo CHtml::activeTextField($item,"[$i]name"); ?></td>
<td><?php echo CHtml::activeTextField($item,"[$i]price"); ?></td>
<td><?php echo CHtml::activeTextField($item,"[$i]count"); ?></td>
<td><?php echo CHtml::activeTextArea($item,"[$i]description"); ?></td>
</tr>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</table>

<?php echo CHtml::submitButton('Save'); ?>
<?php echo CHtml::endForm(); ?>
</div><!-- form -->

Both code snippets are taken from yiiframework.com where you can find more details on how to use ‘Tabular Inputs’: http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/1.1/en/form.table