Populating a CakePHP Form with MySQL Default Values.

Sometimes it can be handy to fill a form with defaults.

Tagged with Web Development and CakePHP
Posted on 12/9/09 by Paul Herron

Here's a quick tip for populating a form with the MySQL defaults. Take the following schema, for example, of editions of an email newsletter:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS editions;
 
CREATE TABLE editions (
        id int(8) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
        title varchar(255) DEFAULT 'Coming up this week...',
        created datetime DEFAULT NULL,
        modified datetime DEFAULT NULL,
        PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

In this case, I'm taking the Edition.title field as one the user might want to change, but would most likely just use a default value for. Populating the form field with that default is simple using Model::create():

<?php class EditionsController extends AppController {       function add() {         if(empty($this->data)) {                         $this->data = $this->Edition->create();               } else {                   if($this->Edition->save($this->data)) {                     $this->Session->setFlash('Edition saved.');          } else {         $this->Session->setFlash('Sorry. That edition could not be saved.');                      }           }    } } ?>
  
	
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