checkbox not checked while editing the user record in cakephp

Question

I have table user which have fields username, password, and type. The type can be any or a combination of these: employee, vendor and client e.g. a user can be both a vendor and a client, or some another combination. For the type field I have used the multiple checkbox (see the code below). This is the views/users/add.ctp file:

<div class="users form">
<?php echo $this->Form->create('User');?>
    <fieldset>
        <legend><?php __('Add User'); ?></legend>
    <?php
        echo $this->Form->input('username');
        echo $this->Form->input('password');

        echo $this->Form->input('type', array('type' => 'select', 'multiple' => 'checkbox','options' => array(
     'client' => 'Client',
     'vendor' => 'Vendor',
     'employee' => 'Employee'
   )
  ));
    ?>

    </fieldset>
<?php echo $this->Form->end(__('Submit', true));?>
</div>

In the model file I have used a beforeSave callback method:

app/models/user.php

function beforeSave() {
       if(!empty($this->data['User']['type'])) {
            $this->data['User']['type'] = join(',', $this->data['User']['type']);
        }
       return true;
  }

This code saves the multiple values as comma separated values in the database.

The main problem comes when I'm editing a user. If a user has selected multiple types during user creation, none of the checkboxes is checked for the type.

You have the data modeled wrong to begin with. Before you invest time on code for this model, get that part right. User->Type is a one-to-many relation. That type of relation is represented with a second table where the user may have between 1 and 3 rows. If you ever have multiple values in a single column (i.e. column values are not atomic) you've not normalized your design. — Dan Grossman
@Dan: You want to say that I have to create new table type and user_type tables to relate the types with users. — samir chauhan
You don't necessarily need a types table, but a user_type table, yes. — Dan Grossman
@Dan In user_type table there would be 3 fields id, typeName and user_id. or u have the other way. Could u explain a bit more abt the table structure. — samir chauhan

dogmatic69 dogmatic69 · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-08T16:31:09

you have $this->data['User']['type'] = join(',', $this->data['User']['type']); in the beforeSave() so you would need to do the same in afterFind() $this->data['User']['type'] = explode(',', $user['User']['type']); which would make it an array again.

This is however a horrible design, you should consider doing it properly.

checkbox not checked while editing the user record in cakephp

2 Answers