Question

Im running CodeIgniter for a project of mine … Im fairly new to this, i have the standard form validation checks for my form, except im unsure of how to check if the value already exists in the database.

This is what i have for my form validation rules so far

$this->form_validation->set_rules('rolename', 'Role Name', 'trim|required|xss_clean');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('rolekey', 'Role Key', 'trim|required|xss_clean');

The ‘rolekey’ is what i need to check against the ‘rolekey’ column in the database to see if it exists, if it does i need to shoot back an error.

Any help would be grand.

Cheers,

Answer 1

There is not a built-in form validation check for whether or not a value is in the database, but you can create your own validation checks.

In your controller, create a method similar to this:

function rolekey_exists($key)
{
    $this->roles_model->role_exists($key);
}

And in your model that handles roles, add something like this:

function role_exists($key)
{
    $this->db->where('rolekey',$key);
    $query = $this->db->get('roles');
    if ($query->num_rows() > 0){
        return true;
    }
    else{
        return false;
    }
}

And then you can write a form validation check like this:

$this->form_validation->set_rules('username', 'Username', 'callback_rolekey_exists');

See this page for more information:

https://www.codeigniter.com/user_guide/libraries/form_validation.html#callbacks-your-own-validation-methods