Validate email across 2 tables with custom validator in CakePHP 3.x

Question

I need to make sure that an email field is unique for the current contacts table and I want to make sure that same email is unique to the users table as well. If it is not found in either table then allow the data to be saved.

I am not sure if I am retrieving the data in the best way. This is the only way I have found to work.

Also, I can get the custom check to work and it will return false if the email exists and true if the email doesn't exists, but it still saves the data. Not sure how to tell it not to save the data if the email was found.

Here is my contacts table model currently:

<?php
namespace App\Model\Table;

use App\Model\Entity\Contact;
use Cake\ORM\Query;
use Cake\ORM\RulesChecker;
use Cake\ORM\Table;
use Cake\ORM\TableRegistry;
use Cake\Validation\Validator;

/**
 * Contacts Model
 */
class ContactsTable extends Table
{

    /**
     * Initialize method
     *
     * @param array $config The configuration for the Table.
     * @return void
     */
    public function initialize(array $config)
    {
        $this->table('contacts');
        $this->displayField('first_name');
        $this->primaryKey('id');
        $this->addBehavior('Timestamp');
    }

    /**
     * Default validation rules.
     *
     * @param \Cake\Validation\Validator $validator Validator instance.
     * @return \Cake\Validation\Validator
     */
    public function validationDefault(Validator $validator)
    {
        $validator
            ->allowEmpty('id', 'create');

        $validator
            ->add('email', [
                'validateEmail' => [
                    'rule' => 'validateEmail',
                    'provider' => 'table',
                    'message' => 'That email already exists'
                    ]
                ])
            ->requirePresence('email', 'create')
            ->notEmpty('email');

        return $validator;
    }

    //check that the email is unique in both the Contacts table and in the Users table
    public function validateEmail($value, $context) {
        $usersTable = TableRegistry::get('Users');
        $contactsTable = TableRegistry::get('Contacts');
        if ( $contactsTable->exists(['email' => $value]) || $usersTable->exists(['email' => $value]) ) {
            return false;
        } else {
            return true;
        }
    }
}

I had to clear the cake cache and now it functions correctly for the most part. The issue I am now having is the message fails to display when the field doesn't validate. — Battousai, Sep 21 '16 at 22:23

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 21 '16 at 23:15

When I first started this endeavor I couldn't figure out how to pull the data in the table, but I got it to work using the method in my OP.

However, I don't think that is the best way to do it. If someone has a better way, let me know.

The above code is working in terms of checking 2 tables for a unique email.

I also figured out how to display the message. When I was saving the data I was overriding the $contact object using this code:

if ($contact = $this->Contacts->save($contact)) {
    //code to execute
}

Once I changed that to:

$new_contact = $this->Contacts->save($contact)

It started to work.

Validate email across 2 tables with custom validator in CakePHP 3.x

1 Answers1