Question

public function registration()
    {
    $this->load->library('form_validation');
    // field name, error message, validation rules
    $this->form_validation->set_rules('user_name', 'User Name', 'trim|required|min_length[4]|xss_clean');
    $this->form_validation->set_rules('email_address', 'Your Email', 'trim|required|valid_email');`enter code here`
    $this->form_validation->set_rules('password', 'Password', 'trim|required|min_length[4]|max_length[32]');
    $this->form_validation->set_rules('con_password', 'Password Confirmation', 'trim|required|matches[password]');
        }

i have done this in codeigniter performing validation. how can i do similar work in php native ? i mean validation

Answer 1

The way I’ve done it in the past is to build objects for it… a form object, a form field object and a form field validator object.

So you’d create all your field objects and, if required, attach validators to them, then attach the whole lot to the form – so you sort of end up with something like:

$oFieldUsername = new FormField('username', new Validator(Validator::TYPE_EMAIL));
$oFieldPassword = new FormField('password', new Validator(Validator::TYPE_PASSWORD));

$oForm = new Form(Form::METHOD_POST, '/path/to/action.php');
$oForm->attachField($oFieldUsername);
$oForm->attachField($oFieldPassword);

//form has not been posted
if(!$oForm->isReceived()) {
  $oForm->render('/path/to/view.tpl.php');
}

//the form HAS been posted but IS NOT VALID
elseif(!$oForm->isValid()) {
  $oForm->render('/path/to/view.tpl.php');
}

//the form HAS been posted and the data LOOKS valid
else {
  //do processing and hand-off
}

The validators deal with things like determining if the field data is required, if the data matches an empty string (RegExp) then it’s not required for instance.

But they can also deal with email validation (with or without getmxrr() lookup) or anything else, you just build Validator types for specific cases… or you have generic Validators:

new Validator(Validator::TYPE_EMAIL); //basic email validator
new Validator(Validator::TYPE_EMAIL_WITH_MX); //email validator with getmxrr()
new Validator(Validator::TYPE_REGEXP, '/^[\w]+$/'); //generic regular expression with the pattern to match as the second parameter
new Validator(Validator::TYPE_INT_MIN, 10); //integer with a minimum value of 10
new Validator(Validator::TYPE_REGEXP, '/^[\w\s]*$/', true); //the third parameter could be an override so that the validation is optional - if the field has a value it MUST validate, if it doesn't have a value, it's fine

This gives you as much flexibility as you need with validation. All the Form::isValid() method does is loops through all the attached fields, checks to see if they have Validators and if so whether the Validator::isValid() method returns true.

You could also attach multiple Validators to Fields with something like:

//the field value must be an integer between 5 and 10 (inclusive)
$oField->addValidator(new Validator(Validator::TYPE_INT_MIN, 5));
$oField->addValidator(new Validator(Validator::TYPE_INT_MAX, 10));

… that’s how I’ve done it anyway.