Form Validation for Unique Values in Codeigniter

CodeIgniter has a nice Form_validation class. It comes with several validation rules:

 

This might be considered more of an extension than a hack. Nevertheless, we are going to take a core CodeIgniter library and improve it.

Create: “application/libraries/MY_Form_validation.php”

class MY_Form_validation extends CI_Form_validation {

	function unique($value, $params) {

		$CI =& get_instance();
		$CI->load->database();

		$CI->form_validation->set_message('unique',
			'The %s is already being used.');

		list($table, $field) = explode(".", $params, 2);

		$query = $CI->db->select($field)->from($table)
			->where($field, $value)->limit(1)->get();

		if ($query->row()) {
			return false;
		} else {
			return true;
		}

	}
}

Now you can use the unique validation rule.

 

Form Validation for Unique Values in Codeigniter