Question

I have text box in which your adds values in comma separated values. Once the form is post I want to check each of CSV value against database table that if each one of them exist already. If so then I want to throw error message otherwise that is fine.

How can I implement this?

Answer 1

What you need is a custom validator. you can either do it extending Zend_Validate_Abstract or you can simply use a callback validator.

To do so, you need to add this to your element:

$elem = new Zend_Form_Element_Text('elem_name');
$elem->setLabel('Label Name:')
         ->setRequired(true)
         ->addValidator('callback', true, array('callback' => array($this, 'functionName')));
$this->addElement($elem);

And in the same class (usually your form is in a class that extends Zend_Form), you add this method:

public function functionName($csvString) {
    // stuff here using explode(',', $csvString)
    // foreach() to iterate over the result and match against the db each $value
}

See explode() for more information.

However, if your form element is going to be called more than once, and in different forms, then I don’t recommend you to use a callback, but you’d better write your own validator, the theory remains the same though. Take a look here for more information about how to write validators.