cakephp: passing variables to custom validation rules

Question

I currently use cakePHP 2.4.5 on PHP 5.3.27, both may change if necessary (but it would be better if not).

My custom validation rules in a cakephp model require external data to work, such as:

public $nameSpecialChars = '\'- ';
public $dotWhitespace    = '. ';
public $timeLabels       = array('Jahr', 'month', 'jour', 'minuta');
public $tlSeparator      = ', ';

These would ideally be defined elsewhere, but at the top of the model file is good enough for now.

The idea is that they may change later. >nameSpecialChars< is for example used to define special characters which may appear in person names; synonyms of >'< may be included, >´<, >`<, etc. .

However, defining rules which use them, does not seem to work:

public $validate = array(
                         'street' => array(
                                           'required'  =>true ,
                                           'allowEmpty'=>false,
                                           'rule'      =>array('isName', $nameSpecialChars)
                                          )
                        );

Generates a Fatal Error on the 'rule' line: >Error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE, expecting ')'<.

I have found that passing another field as parameter may be done by including a string with the field name, and the documentation demonstrates passing a constant by writing it out. - The latter would imply that passing a string to a string parameter will interpret it as constant, not field name... or would it?

How am I supposed to pass these variables?
Alternatively: Is there a better way to achieve externalisation of these elements?

As a reference, here is the function to the cited custom rule (note that it is of placeholder character):

// Names must contain only letters and a couple of special characters.
// note on UTF8 handling pre-php6: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16862181/3434465
// whole thing should be reworked once proper UTF8 support is available
public function isName($check, string $allowedSpecialChars)
{
  setlocale(LC_CTYPE, 'utf8'); // to ensure correct ctype_alpha evaluation;
                               // may change arbitrarily during server operation, thence always ensure it be set
  if(mb_substr($allowedSpecialChars, -1) != 'u')
  {
    $allowedSpecialChars = $allowedSpecialChars . 'u'; // ensure that UTF8-flag is set
  }

  $name = array_values($check)[0]; // reduce to input string; bit of a hack, better replace once better way found
  $charArray = preg_split("//u", $name, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY); // theoretically UTF8-aware split

  bool validCharacters = true;
  foreach($charArray as $char) // not quite UTF8 compatible, I fear
  {
    validCharacters = validCharacters && (
                                          ctype_alpha($char) // UTF8-aware due to locale
                                          ||
                                          preg_match($allowedSpecialChars, $char, null) // UTF8-aware due to terminating 'u'-flag
                                         );
  }
  return validCharacters;
}

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 10 '14 at 10:27

1

Generates a Fatal Error on the 'rule' line: >Error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE, expecting ')'<.

php basics: you can't use a variable in a property declaration.

Add your rule to the validate property in the beforeValidate() callback.

answered Apr 10 '14 at 10:27

floriank

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score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 22 '14 at 12:30

Use: define(, ); php-based page generation is generating hypertext on page request - no reason not to employ recursively (define template spaces in generating php-file, insert run-time constant before page request into template space).

Write standard value into generating php-file, so that there is a valid entry at all times: define("nameSpecialChars", '|'.'[\'-\s]'); Use regex or similar to replace value when needed.

cakephp: passing variables to custom validation rules

2 Answers2