Dynamic ComboBox With CodeIgniter
Saturday, December 5th, 2009I’m updating a project that I created using CodeIgniter. I have to add a combobox (select) to a registration form that contains state names. I did not want to create a static combo box, so I created a states table in the MySQL database that I’m using for the project. The states table contains three fields (state_id, state_abbrev, state_name).
The Model
I first created a states model. I have already populated the states table, so I only need to create methods to retrieve the data. The first method will be used to retrieve a specific row from the states table based upon the state_id. The second method will retrieve all values from the states table. This second method will be used to populate the combobox.
class mStates extends Model { function mStates() { parent::Model(); } function getState($id) { $data = array(); $options = array('state_id' => $id); $Q = $this->db->getwhere('states', $options, 1); if ($Q->num_rows() > 0) { $data = $Q->row_array(); } $Q->free_result(); return $data; } function getStates() { $data = array(); $Q = $this->db->get('states'); if ($Q->num_rows() > 0) { foreach ($Q->result_array() as $row){ $data[] = $row; } } $Q->free_result(); return $data; } } |
The getStates method queries the states table, loops through the data and stores it in an array.
The Controller
This is an existing project so I had previously created a register method in one of my controllers. I only need to add line to retrieve the states data from the mStates model.
function register(){ if ($this->input->post('email')){ $this->mMembers->addMember(); $this->session->set_flashdata('message','Account created'); redirect('members/login','refresh'); } else { $data['title'] = $this->title; $data['caption'] = "Member Registration"; $data['navList'] = $this->mainMenu; $data['page'] = 'register'; $data['tour'] = $this->mTours->getLatestTour(); // retrieve the states and add to the data array $data['states'] = $this->mStates->getStates(); $this->load->vars($data); $this->load->view('main'); } } |
The View
I created a register view with a form that enables users to register with the site. I need to add a combobox and populate the data dynamically.
echo form_open('members/register'); echo "<p><label for='first_name'>First Name</label><span class='required'>*</span><br/>"; $data = array('name'=>'first_name','id'=>'first_name','maxlength'=>20); echo form_input($data) ."</p>"; echo "<p><label for='last_name'>Last Name</label><span class='required'>*</span><br/>"; $data = array('name'=>'last_name','id'=>'last_name','maxlength'=>20); echo form_input($data) ."</p>"; echo "<p><label for='u'>Email</label><span class='required'>*</span><br/>"; $data = array('name'=>'email','id'=>'u','maxlength'=>50); echo form_input($data) ."</p>"; echo "<p><label for='state'>State</label><span class='required'>*</span><br/>"; echo "<select name='state_id' id='state_id'>"; if (count($states)) { foreach ($states as $key => $list) { echo "<option value='". $list['state_id'] . "'>" . $list['state_name'] . "</option>"; } } echo "</select>"; echo form_submit('submit','register'); echo form_close(); |
If the states array has values, loop through each row and add it to the combobox. That’s it. As you can see using CodeIgniter to populate a combobox is not that difficult.
To create...