function __construct() {
  parent::__construct();
  $this->load->helper('form');
}

set_value returns the value from the $_POST array for the specified field. It can be used to retrieve values for textarea‘s and text fields.
apps/main/controllers/formexample.php

function create() {
  // First parameter is the field name, second is the default value.
  $user_name = set_value('user_name', '');
  $password = set_value('password');    

  // Set the view values, this part depends on how you set views.
  $this->tpl_data += array(
		    'form_action'	=> 'formexample/create',
			'user_name' 	=> $user_name,
			'password' 		=> $password,
		);
  // Load the view
  $this->_tpl('formexample/edit');
}

apps/main/views/formexample/edit.php

echo form_open($form_action, '', array ('submit' => true))

// Create an array which contains the html attributes
// we want for the user_name field.
$user_name_attribs = array (
                        'name'  => 'user_name',
                        'id'    => 'user_name',
                        'value' => $user_name
                     );
// Create the text field using the attributes from the array we created earlier.
echo form_input($user_name_attribs);

// This creates a password type input field.
echo form_password('password', $password);

echo form_submit('submit', 'Submit');
// Close the form.
echo form_close();

Another thing about CodeIgniter’s set_value() function is that it automatically applies htmlspecialchars() to the value being requested, so that the text can be placed safely in form fields.

Download the files and test it out.

If you found this article useful, please share your comments below.

Related posts:

1. CodeIgniter Forms Tutorial
2. CodeIgniter File Upload And Email Example
3. Storing Codeigniter Session Data to a Database

mod_rewrite and the Index page

Before anything else, make sure you have mod_rewrite enabled on your server. Once that’s taken care of, edit your index.php file and set $config['index_page'] to blank.

index.php

$config['index_page'] = '';

Creating the .htaccess file

Go to your root directory, create a file called “.htaccess” and paste the following.

# Set the default file for indexes
DirectoryIndex index.php

# mod_rewrite rules
RewriteEngine on

# The RewriteBase of the system (if you are using this system in a sub-folder).
# RewriteBase /SubFolderName/

# This will make the site only accessible without the "www."
# (which will keep the subdomain-sensive config file happy)
# If you want the site to be accessed WITH the "www."
# comment-out the following two lines.
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.site\.com$ [NC]
# RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://site.com/$1 [L,R=301]

# If a controller can't be found - then issue a 404 error from PHP
# Error messages (via the "error" plugin)
# ErrorDocument 403 /index.php/403/
# ErrorDocument 404 /index.php/404/
# ErrorDocument 500 /index.php/500/

# Deny any people (or bots) from the following sites: (to stop spam comments)
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} nienschanz\.ru [NC,OR]
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} porn\.com
# RewriteRule .* - [F]
# Note: if you are having trouble from a certain URL just
# add it above to bock all visitors from that site.

# Or you can also uncomment this if you know the IP:
# Deny from 192.168.1.1

# If the file is NOT the index.php file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !index.php

# Hide all PHP files so none can be accessed by HTTP
RewriteRule (.*)\.php$ index.php/$1

# If the file/dir is NOT real go to index
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [QSA,L]

# If mod_rewrite is NOT installed go to index.php

ErrorDocument 404 index.php

Download the files and test it out.

If you found this article useful, please share your comments below.

Related posts:

1. CodeIgniter File Upload And Email Example
2. CodeIgniter Profiler Extended
3. CodeIgniter Short URL Redirect Example

As the title implies this tutorial will guide you through the basic usage of one of the most commonly used and valuable helper, the Form Helpers. Part of this forms tutorial is the use of the Form Validation library which has different options for form validation.

Setting up the form

By default CodeIgniter does not load any helpers, so the first step should be to load the Form Helper either in your autoload.php file or in the controller you want to use.

apps/main/config/autoload.php

$autoload['helper'] = array('form');

apps/main/controllers/formexample.php

$this->load->helper('form');

When loading via the controller always remember to load the form helper first before using any form helper function.

In this forms tutorial will be using most of the Form Helper functions inside our view.

apps/main/controllers/formexample/php

function create()
{
$this->load->view('formexample/edit');
}

CodeIgniter forms helper provides various functions to generate different form elements such as form_open(), form_close(), form_label(), form_input(), form_password(), form_radio() and form_checkbox(). These let you create form elements on the fly without going through so much html.

Inside our view let’s create the opening form tag using form_open().

apps/main/views/formexample/edit.php

echo form_open($form_action, '', array ('submit' => true));

The first argument is our form’s action, the second would be an array of additional attributes we want to add to the form, and the third is an array of hidden fields we want to create alongside the form.

Adding fields.

Most form helper functions can be used in two ways.

The first method is to pass a field name to the first parameter and a default value (optional) to the second.

echo form_input('user_name', 'john doe');

And the second method is to pass an associative array, which contains the html attributes, to the function.

$user_name_attribs = array (
'name'  => 'user_name',
'id'    => 'user_name',
'value' => 'john doe'
);
echo form_input($user_name_attribs);

We’ll use the second method in this forms tutorial. So let’s add it to our edit.php file and some other fields as well.

apps/main/views/formexample/edit.php

echo form_open($form_action, '', array ('submit' => true));
$user_name_attribs = array (
'name'  => 'user_name',
'id'    => 'user_name',
'value' => 'john doe'
);
echo form_input($user_name_attribs);
// This creates a password type input field.
echo form_password('password');
// Create the email field.
echo form_input('email');
// Create radio buttons for gender, as with standard html the first parameter
// determines the grouping.
echo form_radio('gender', '1', TRUE) . ' Male';
echo form_radio('gender', '0') . ' Female';

The form_input() method creates an input field of type text and renders it as html.

Now let’s add a label to the input field we just created using the form_label() method. Just like the form_input() method we can either pass an associative array to the form_label() function, but we’ll keep it simple and pass two parameters, the text we want to display and the name of the field it is for.

echo form_label('Username:', 'user_name');

Dropdown boxes

When creating a dropdown box we must first define an array which contains the options and their respective values.

// This array contains the options for our dropdown.
$dropdown_options = array (
'1' => 'Option 1',
'2' => 'Option 2',
'3' => 'Option 3'
);

// Create the dropdown using the options above.
echo form_dropdown('options', $dropdown_options);

Submit button and closing form tag

The submit button is created much like the form_input() method.

echo form_submit('submit', 'Submit');

Closing the form is as simple as calling the form_close() function.

Now let’s take a look at what we currently have going for edit.php

apps/main/views/formexample/edit.php

echo form_open($form_action, '', array ('submit' => true));

// Create an array which contains the html attributes
// we want for the user_name field.
$user_name_attribs = array (
'name'  => 'user_name',
'id'    => 'user_name',
'value' => 'john_doe'
);

// Create our label for user_name.
echo form_label('Username:', 'user_name');

// Create the text field using the attributes from the array we created earlier.
echo form_input($user_name_attribs);
// form_error displays the error message after validation.
echo "<br/>";

// Create the label for the password field.
echo form_label('Password:', 'password');

// This creates a password type input field.
echo form_password('password');

echo "<br/>";

// Create the label for the email field.
echo form_label('Email:', 'email');

// Create the email field.
echo form_input('email');

echo "<br/>";

// Create the label for gender.
echo form_label('Gender:', 'gender');

// Create radio buttons for gender, as with standard html the first parameter
// determines the grouping.
echo form_radio('gender', '1', TRUE) . ' Male';
echo form_radio('gender', '0') . ' Female';

echo "<br/>";

// This array contains the options for our dropdown.
$dropdown_options = array (
'1' => 'Option 1',
'2' => 'Option 2',
'3' => 'Option 3'
);

echo form_label('Choose 1:', 'options');

// Create the dropdown using the options above.
echo form_dropdown('options', $dropdown_options);

echo "<br/><br/>";

echo form_submit('submit', 'Submit');

// Close the form.
echo form_close();

Now that we have our form ready, let’s setup form validation and processing.

Form validation and processing

As with any library, we have to load the form_validation helper in order to use it. So on your controller place the following code.

$this->load->library('form_validation');

Defining the rules.

The form_validation library provides us with the following set of rules that we can use.

• required
• matches
• min_length
• max_length
• exact_length
• alpha
• alpha_numeric
• alpha_dash
• numeric
• integer
• is_natural
• is_natural_no_zero
• valid_email
• valid_emails
• valid_ip
• valid_base64

To use these methods we have to call the Form Validation library’s set_rules() function like so.

apps/main/controllers/formexample.php

function create()
{
$this->load->library('form_validation');

// Here we tell CodeIgniter about our validation rules.
$this->form_validation->set_rules('user_name', 'Username', 'required');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('password', 'Password', 'required');
// We can also use cascading rules like so.
$this->form_validation->set_rules('email', 'Email', 'required|valid_email');
}

Once we receive a POST request we can call the run() method to start the validation process. This method returns either TRUE or FALSE.

if ($this->form_validation->run())
{
// Process the form.
}

Error messages.

We can show validation error messages individually by using the form_error() function. Just pass the field name as a parameter.

apps/main/views/formexample/edit.php

echo form_input($user_name_attribs);
// form_error displays the error message after validation.
echo form_error('user_name');

Download the files and test it out.

If you found this article useful, please share your comments below.

Related posts:

1. CodeIgniter File Upload And Email Example
2. Storing Codeigniter Session Data to a Database
3. How To Upgrade to CodeIgniter 2.0

Download CodeIgniter 2.0 here.

Step 1: Update CodeIgniter’s core libraries.

Replace the contents of your “system” folder except your “application” folder.

Be sure to have a backup just in case you have edited some of these files.

Step 2: Convert your plugins to helpers.

For CodeIgniter 2.0 plugins have been completely replaced by helpers, so move all your plugins to your helpers folder, rename the files accordingly so such as filename_pi.php to filename_helper.php and change all instances of:

$this->load->plugin('foo');

to

$this->load->helper('foo');

Step 3: Update stored encrypted data.

The Encryption library has had a number of improvements, some for encryption strength and some for performance, that has an unavoidable consequence of making it no longer possible to decode encrypted data produced by the original version of this library. To help with the transition, a new method has been added, encode_from_legacy() that will decode the data with the original algorithm and return a re-encoded string using the improved methods. This will enable you to easily replace stale encrypted data with fresh in your applications, either on the fly or en masse.

Step 4: Remove loading calls for the compatibility helper.

The compatibility helper has been removed from the CodeIgniter core. All methods in it should be natively available in supported PHP versions.

Step 5: Update class extensions.

All core classes are now prefixed with CI_. Update Models and Controllers to extend CI_Model and CI_Controller, respectively.

Step 6: Update Parent Constructor calls

All native CodeIgniter classes now use the PHP 5 __construct() convention. Please update extended libraries to call parent::__construct().

Note: Support for PHP 4 is gone, PHP 5.1 is now a requirement.

Step 7: Add CodeIgniter 2.0′s new directories.

If you check CodeIgniter 2.0′s file structure you should see new folders: core, third_party, and logs. So go ahead and create these folders on you application folder.

Step 8: Move extended core classes.

Now that you have created the core folder, move all extensions you have made in your libraries folder to the core folder in the applications directory.

Example:
From

/application/libraries/MY_Controller.php
/application/libraries/MY_Model.php

To

/application/core/MY_Controller.php
/application/core/MY_Model.php

Step 9: Update index.php.

Open up your index.php and look for the line that says:

require_once BASEPATH.'codeigniter/CodeIgniter'.EXT;

replace that with

require_once BASEPATH.'core/CodeIgniter'.EXT;

If you would notice CodeIgniter 2.0′s file structure in the system folder has changed a bit.

….and you’re done!

Have a look at CodeIgniter 2.0′s change log for the full list of improvements and enhancements.

Download the files and test it out.

If you found this article useful, please share your comments below.

Related posts:

1. CodeIgniter File Upload And Email Example
2. Storing Codeigniter Session Data to a Database
3. CodeIgniter Profiler Extended

CodeIgniter – Getting Started

• Everything You Need to Get Started With CodeIgniter
• Easy Development With CodeIgniter

Become a CodeIgniter Pro in 15 Days!

• Day 1: Getting Started With the Framework
• Day 2: Database Selecting Methods
• Day 3: Sending Emails
• Day 4: Newsletter Signup
• Day 5: CRUD
• Day 6: Login
• Day 7: Pagination
• Day 8: AJAX
• Day 9: File Uploading and Image Manipulation
• Day 10: The Calendar Library
• Day 11: File and Directory Operations
• Day 12: Shopping Cart
• Day 13: Extending the Framework
• Day 14: Security
• Day 15: Profiling, Benchmarking & Hooks

Other Sample CodeIgniter Tutorials Worth Reviewing

• Build an RSS 2.0 Feed with CodeIgniter
• Working with RESTful Services in CodeIgniter
• Basecamp Style Subdomains With CodeIgniter
• Creating a File Hosting Site with CodeIgniter
• How to Build a Shopping Cart using CodeIgniter and jQuery
• How to Update your Twitter Status with CodeIgniter

All of these CodeIgniter Tutorials are provided for free by NetTuts.com. Share your favorite CodeIgniter Tutorials in the comments below.

Related posts:

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2. CodeIgniter with Zend Framework Libraries
3. Storing Codeigniter Session Data to a Database

In this example we’re going to try out the CI session class, and explore storing session data in a database. We’ll use a simple ordering form to capture information, and play around the settings to get some pretty interesting results.

STEP 1: Configure CodeIgniter

Autoloading helpers and libraries is one of the ways CI helps simplify application development. So go ahead and load the  database and session library on your config/autoload.php file . While we’re here, load the form and url helpers as well.

$autoload['libraries'] = array('database', 'session');
$autoload['helper'] = array('form', 'url');

On the same config folder, open up the config.php file and set up CI for saving session data to a database.

You want to look for:

$config['sess_use_database'] = TRUE;

Make sure to change that to TRUE. You can also specify the name of the database you want to use for your session data. Just look for:

$config['sess_table_name'] = 'ci_sessions';

By default the database is named ci_sessions, and that’s the name we’re going to use to create our database later on.

Now for this demonstration, we’re going to play around with the session expiration. So look for the line:

$config['sess_expiration'] = 7200;

Set the session expiration to 2 seconds. Normally, the session is set to expire in 2 days or 7200 seconds. But for this activity we want make multiple entries to our session database. So every two seconds the session expires and a new one can be created when the user submits new data from our ordering form.

STEP 2: Build the Database

Now that we have our config files set. Lets proceed to building our database. The CI user guide provides and excellent example of the basic prototype we can use for our database:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS  `ci_sessions` (
session_id varchar(40) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
ip_address varchar(16) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
user_agent varchar(50) NOT NULL,
last_activity int(10) unsigned DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL,
user_data text NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (session_id)
);

Go ahead and take a look at the database table that was created. Inside the ci_sessions table you’ll see five fields:

1. session_id
2. ip_address
3. user_agent
4. last_activity
5. user_data

The user_data field is where our custom data will be stored later on.

STEP 3: Create the Form

Ok, we’ve got our database ready. Lets take it for a spin by building a simple ordering form. In our views folder, you want to create sessionexample.php file with the following code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Order Form</title>
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo base_url();?>css/style.css" >
</head>

<body>
<h5>Fruity Orders</h5>
<?php
$attributes = array(
'name'         => 'orderform'
, 'id'         => 'orderform'
);
echo form_open('sessionexample/process', $attributes);

echo form_label('Order for: ', 'ordername');
echo form_input('ordername').'<br />';

echo form_label('How Many: ', 'quantity');
$data = array(
'name' => 'quantity'
, 'id' => 'quantity'
, 'maxlength' => '2'
, 'size' => '1'
);
echo form_input($data).' ';

echo form_label('Choose Item ', 'choice');
$options = array(
'apples' => 'Apples'
, 'oranges' => 'Oranges'
, 'pears' => 'Pears'
);
echo form_dropdown('choice', $options, 'apples').'<br />';

echo form_submit('submit', 'Send My Order');
echo form_close();

echo (isset($message) ? "<div class='message'>".$message."</div>" : NULL);
?>

</body>
</html>

STEP 4: Create the Controller

Now for the fun part. Create a file called sessionexample.php in the controllers folder. Inside it, we’re going to catch the data as the user submits his order, then store the data into our session using flashdata.

class Sessionexample extends MY_Controller {
function __construct(){
parent::__construct();
}

function index(){
$this->load->view('sessionexample');
}

function process(){
$values = array(
'ordername'     => $this->input->post('ordername')
, 'quantity'     => $this->input->post('quantity')
, 'choice'         => $this->input->post('choice')
);
$this->session->set_flashdata($values);

$data['message']     = "You ordered ".$values['quantity'];
$data['message']     .= " ".$values['choice']." for ".$values['ordername'].".";

$this->load->view('sessionexample', $data);
}
}

Notice that after storing the user data, we retrieve it from the session object and send it back to our view as feedback for the user. You can take the application for a spin now or finish off with some styles.  After as the session is created, CI automatically stores the information to our database. Since we tweaked the session expiration to 2 seconds, you can make multiple database entries to observe how CI stores the information.

STEP 5 (Optional): Finish with style

Let’s polish off our web application with styling. We’re also going to link a style sheet to our order form:

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo base_url();?>css/style.css" >

Go ahead and create style.css where we’re going to place the following styles:

body {
background: #EFB4B3;
margin: 0; padding: 0;
font-family: arial;
}

#orderform {
border: 1px solid black;
margin: 15px auto 0; padding: 1em;
width: 350px;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
}

.message {
background: #FFFFCC;
margin: 15px auto 0; padding: 1em;
width: 350px;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
}

h5 {
color: #336699;
font-size:24px; font-weight:bold;
margin-bottom: 2px;
text-align: center;
}

input[type=text], select {
margin: 0 0 1em 0; padding: 2px;
width: auto;
border: 5px;
font-size:14px;
-moz-border-radius: 1px;
-webkit-border-radius: 1px;
}

input[type=submit]{
background: #3399FF;
border: none;
padding: 6px;
text-decoration: none;
color: white; font-size: 12px;
-moz-border-radius: 4px;
-webkit-border-radius: 4px;
}

input[type=submit]:hover{
background: #0099CC;
cursor: pointer;
}

There you have it, a quick and simple demo on how to store CodeIgniter Session Data on a database.

If you found this article useful, please share your comments below.

Related posts:

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2. CodeIgniter with Multiple Database Support
3. CodeIgniter Profiler Extended