CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqlformsvalidationcodeigniter
justanelephant
justanelephant

Reputation: 71

CodeIgniter's is_unique always saying value already exists

I'm using CodeIgniter's form validation, and I've spent a lot of time trying to fix this, with no luck. I have this field:

<input type="text" name="user" id="user" length="20" placeholder="Username">

And I'm using this to validate:

$this->form_validation->set_rules('user', 'Username', 'trim|required|min_length[3]|max_length[20]|alpha_dash|is_unique[users.user]');

My db has a table users and user is a field in it, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong, or what the problem is. The table is empty (but I've also tried with it having records) and in phpmyadmin the "unique" icon is selected. I know the db connection is working fine, because if I remove that rule and enter otherwise valid data and submit the form, then the user is added to the database.

Unless is_unique uses another db configuration file that I haven't configured? I don't really know. It's kind of frustrating and I'm thinking that I may as well just drop the use of a framework...

Your help would be great! Thanks.

Upvotes: 7

Views: 1519

Answers (6)

Solus
Solus

Reputation: 1

Using your code as an example, the is_unique validation rule works by looking for a field called user_name in your users database table. If the field with the same value exists it validates as false.

To make sure it runs only when the user submits a new value, you could check the posted value $this->input->post('user_name') against the value you pulled from the database to populate your form with. If they are the same, don't validate is_unique:

if($this->input->post('user_name') != $original_value) {
   $is_unique =  '|is_unique[users.user_name]'
} else {
   $is_unique =  ''
}

$this->form_validation->set_rules('user_name', 'User Name', 'required|trim|xss_clean'.$is_unique);

Upvotes: 0

Javier Larroulet
Javier Larroulet

Reputation: 3237

I know your question is very old but I just recently encountered a similar problem with a custom form validation and after some serious debugging I found a cause and workaround.

Apparently, the CI core has a small bug: the database library isn't instanced (at least in the latest versions of CI) when calling the is_unique form validation method, thus preventing the check from actually being performed and always returning false as the validation result.

Here is the workaround for the form validation library (system/libraries/Form_validation.php)

public function is_unique($str, $field)
{
    sscanf($field, '%[^.].%[^.]', $table, $field);

    // add the following line
    $this->CI->load->database();

    return isset($this->CI->db)
        ? ($this->CI->db->limit(1)->get_where($table, array($field => $str))->num_rows() === 0)
        : FALSE;
}

By adding the line after the comment, you'll make sure the database library is correctly instanced for the is_unique method and you'll get it to work. Without that line, the isset($this->CI->db) check will always return false

You could also put that line in the library's constructor, but then you'd be instancing the database library in all form validation rules which is not necessary (only is_unique needs it).

Upvotes: 0

Pengguna PHP
Pengguna PHP

Reputation: 15

it needs to load database.

$this->load->database();

Upvotes: 0

abdul karim
abdul karim

Reputation: 146

try this :- 

$this->form_validation->set_rules('user', 'Username', 'trim|required|min_length[3]|max_length[20]|alpha_dash|unique[users.user]');

Upvotes: 1

ChrisA
ChrisA

Reputation: 293

In Transact-SQL the word "USER" is a special word. Try surrounding uses.user with a back-ticks like so: 

`users.user`
...see if that helps.

Upvotes: 1

Aaria Carter-Weir
Aaria Carter-Weir

Reputation: 1679

This might/might not help: You seem to be loading the DB after running the form validation. There's also a typo uses.user.

Upvotes: 1

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