summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/user_guide/helpers/form_helper.html
blob: 8593f81d9deb31f4c07c855673199bb35f04cd6c (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>

<title>Code Igniter User Guide</title>

<style type='text/css' media='all'>@import url('../userguide.css');</style>
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' media='all' href='../userguide.css' />

<script type="text/javascript" src="../scripts/nav.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../scripts/prototype.lite.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../scripts/moo.fx.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
window.onload = function() {
	myHeight = new fx.Height('nav', {duration: 400}); 
	myHeight.hide();
}
</script>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv='expires' content='-1' />
<meta http-equiv= 'pragma' content='no-cache' />
<meta name='robots' content='all' />
<meta name='author' content='Rick Ellis' />
<meta name='description' content='Code Igniter User Guide' />

</head>
<body>

<!-- START NAVIGATION -->
<div id="nav"><div id="nav_inner"><script type="text/javascript">create_menu('../');</script></div></div>
<div id="nav2"><a name="top"></a><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="myHeight.toggle();"><img src="../images/nav_toggle.jpg" width="153" height="44" border="0" title="Toggle Table of Contents" alt="Toggle Table of Contents" /></a></div>
<div id="masthead">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:100%">
<tr>
<td><h1>Code Igniter User Guide Version 1.4.0</h1></td>
<td id="breadcrumb_right"><a href="../toc.html">Full Table of Contents</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<!-- END NAVIGATION -->


<!-- START BREADCRUMB -->
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:100%">
<tr>
<td id="breadcrumb">
<a href="http://www.codeigniter.com/">Code Igniter Home</a> &nbsp;&#8250;&nbsp;
<a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> &nbsp;&#8250;&nbsp;
Form Helper
</td>
<td id="searchbox"><form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search"><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" id="as_sitesearch" value="www.codeigniter.com/user_guide/" />Search User Guide&nbsp; <input type="text" class="input" style="width:200px;" name="q" id="q" size="31" maxlength="255" value="" />&nbsp;<input type="submit" class="submit" name="sa" value="Go" /></form></td>
</tr>
</table>
<!-- END BREADCRUMB -->

<br clear="all" />


<!-- START CONTENT -->
<div id="content">


<h1>Form Helper</h1>

<p>The Form Helper file contains functions that assist in working with forms.</p>


<h2>Loading this Helper</h2>

<p>This helper is loaded using the following code:</p>
<code>$this->load->helper('form');</code>

<p>The following functions are available:</p>



<h2>form_open()</h2>

<p>Creates an opening form tag with a base URL <strong>built from your config preferences</strong>.  It will optionally let you
add form attributes and hidden input fields.</p>

<p>The main benefit of using this tag rather than hard coding your own HTML is that it permits your site to be more portable
in the event your URLs ever change.</p>

<p>Here's a simple example:</p>

<code>echo form_open('email/send');</code>

<p>The above example would create a form that points to your base URL plus the "email/send" URI segments, like this:</p>

<code>&lt;form method="post" action="http:/www.your-site.com/index.php/email/send" /></code>

<h4>Adding Attributes</h4>

<p>Attributes can be added by passing an associative array to the second parameter, like this:</p>

<code>
$attributes = array('class' => 'email', 'id' => 'myform');<br />
<br />
echo form_open('email/send', $attributes);</code>

<p>The above example would create a form similar to this:</p>

<code>&lt;form method="post" action="http:/www.your-site.com/index.php/email/send" &nbsp;class="email" &nbsp;id="myform" /></code>

<h4>Adding Hidden Input Fields</h4>

<p>Hidden fields can be added by passing an associative array to the third parameter, like this:</p>

<code>
$hidden = array('username' => 'Joe', 'member_id' => '234');<br />
<br />
echo form_open('email/send', '', $hidden);</code>

<p>The above example would create a form similar to this:</p>

<code>&lt;form method="post" action="http:/www.your-site.com/index.php/email/send" &nbsp;class="email" &nbsp;id="myform" /><br />
&lt;input type="hidden" name="username" value="Joe" /><br />
&lt;input type="hidden" name="member_id" value="234" /></code>


<h2>form_open_multipart()</h2>

<p>This function is absolutely identical to the <dfn>form_open()</dfn> tag above except that it adds a multipart attribute,
which is necessary if you would like to use the form to upload files with.</p>

<h2>form_hidden()</h2>

<p>Lets you generate hidden input fields.  You can either submit a name/value string to create one field:</p>

<code>form_hidden('username', 'johndoe');<br />
<br />
// Would produce:<br /><br />
&lt;input type="hidden" name="username" value="johnodoe" /></code>

<p>Or you can submit an associative array to create multiple fields:</p>

<code>$data = array(<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'name'&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'John Doe',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'email' => 'john@some-site.com',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'url'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'http://www.some-site.com'<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;);<br />
<br />
echo form_hidden($data);<br />
<br />
// Would produce:<br /><br />
&lt;input type="hidden" name="name" value="John Doe" /><br />
&lt;input type="hidden" name="email" value="john@some-site.com" /><br />
&lt;input type="hidden" name="url" value="http://www.some-site.com" /></code>




<h2>form_input()</h2>

<p>Lets you generate a standard text input field.  You can minimally pass the field name and value in the first
and second parameter:

<code>echo form_input('username', 'johndoe');</code>

<p>Or you can pass an associative array containing any data you wish your form to contain:</p>

<code>$data = array(<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'name'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'username',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'id'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'username',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'value'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'johndoe',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'maxlength'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> '100',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'size'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> '50',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'style'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; => 'width:50%',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;);<br />
<br />
echo form_input($data);<br />
<br />
// Would produce:<br /><br />
&lt;input type="text" name="username" id="username" value="johndoe" maxlength="100" size="50" style="width:50%" /></code>

<p>If you would like your form to contain some additional data, like JavaScript, you can pass it as a string in the 
third parameter:

<code>$js = 'onClick="some_function()"';<br />
<br />
echo form_input('username', 'johndoe', $js);</code>

<h2>form_password()</h2>

<p>This function is identical in all respects to the <dfn>form_input()</dfn> function above 
except that is sets it as a "password" type.</p>

<h2>form_upload()</h2>

<p>This function is identical in all respects to the <dfn>form_input()</dfn> function above 
except that is sets it as a "file" type, allowing it to be used to upload files.</p>

<h2>form_textarea()</h2>

<p>This function is identical in all respects to the <dfn>form_input()</dfn> function above 
except that it generates a "textarea" type. Note: Instead of the "maxlength" and "size" attributes in the above
example, you will instead specify "rows" and "cols".</p>


<h2>form_dropdown()</h2>

<p>Lets you create a standard drop-down field.  The first parameter will contain the name of the field,
the second parameter will contain an associative array of options, and the third parameter will contain the
value you wish to be selected.  Example:

<code>$options = array(<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'small'&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'Small Shirt',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'med'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'Medium Shirt',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;large'&nbsp;&nbsp; => 'Large Shirt',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'xlarge' => 'Extra Large Shirt',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;);<br />
<br />
echo form_dropdown('shirts', $options, 'large');<br />
<br />
// Would produce:<br /><br />

&lt;select name="shirts"><br />
&lt;option value="small">Small Shirt</option><br />
&lt;option value="med">Medium  Shirt</option><br />
&lt;option value="large" selected>Large Shirt</option><br />
&lt;option value="xlarge">Extra Large Shirt</option><br />
&lt;/select></code>


<p>If you would like the opening &lt;select> to contain  additional data, like JavaScript, you can pass it as a string in the 
fourth parameter:

<code>$js = 'onChange="some_function()"';<br />
<br />
echo form_dropdown('shirts', $options, 'large', $js);</code>


<h2>form_checkbox()</h2>

<p>Lets you generate a checkbox field. Simple example:


<code>echo form_checkbox('newsletter', 'accept', TRUE);<br />
<br />
// Would produce:<br />
<br />
&lt;input type="checkbox" name="newsletter" value="accept" checked="checked" /></code>

<p>The third parameter contains a boolean TRUE/FALSE to determine whether the box should be checked or not.</p>

<p>Similar to the other form functions in this helper, you can also pass an array of attributes to the function:</p>

<code>$data = array(<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'name'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'newsletter',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'id'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'newsletter',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'value'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> 'accept',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'checked'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=> TRUE,<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'style'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; => 'margin:10px',<br />
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;);<br />
<br />
echo form_checkbox($data);<br />
<br />
// Would produce:<br /><br />
&lt;input type="checkbox" name="newsletter" id="newsletter" value="accept" checked="checked" style="margin:10px" /></code>

<p>As with other functions, if you would like the tag to contain  additional data, like JavaScript, you can pass it as a string in the 
fourth parameter:

<code>$js = 'onClick="some_function()"';<br />
<br />
echo echo form_checkbox('newsletter', 'accept', TRUE, $js)</code>


<h2>form_radio()</h2>
<p>This function is identical in all respects to the <dfn>form_checkbox()</dfn> function above except that is sets it as a "radio" type.</p>


<h2>form_submit()</h2>

<p>Lets you generate a standard submit button. Simple example:</p>

<code>echo form_submit('mysubmit', 'Submit Post!');<br />
<br />
// Would produce:<br />
<br />
&lt;input type="submit" name="mysubmit" value="Submit Post!" /></code>

<p>Similar to other functions, you can submit an associative array in the first parameter if you prefer to set your own attributes.
The third parameter lets you add extra data to your form, like JavaScript.</p>


<h2>form_close()</h2>

<p>Produces a closing &lt;/form> tag.  The only advantage to using this function is it permits you to pass data to it
which will be added below the tag.  For example:</p>

<code>$string = "&lt;/div>&lt;/div>";<br />
<br />
echo form_close($string);<br />
<br />
// Would produce:<br />
<br />
&lt;/form><br />
&lt;/div>&lt;/div></code>





<h2>form_prep()</h2>

<p>Allows you to safely use HTML and characters such as quotes within form elements without breaking out of the form.  Consider this example:</p>

<code>$string = 'Here is a string containing <strong>"quoted"</strong> text.';<br />
<br />
&lt;input type="text" name="myform" value="<var>$string</var>" /></code>

<p>Since the above string contains a set of quotes it will cause the form to break.
The form_prep function converts HTML so that it can be used safely:</p>

<code>&lt;input type="text" name="myform" value="<var>&lt;?php echo form_prep($string); ?></var>" /></code>

<p class="important"><strong>Note:</strong> If you use any of the form helper functions listed in this page the form
values will be prepped automatically, so there is no need to call this function. Use it only if you are
creating your own form elements.</p>




</div>
<!-- END CONTENT -->


<div id="footer">
<p>
Previous Topic:&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="file_helper.html">File Helper</a>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="#top">Top of Page</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&middot;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Next Topic:&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="html_helper.html">HTML Helper</a>
<p>
<p><a href="http://www.codeigniter.com">Code Igniter</a> &nbsp;&middot;&nbsp; Copyright &#169; 2006 &nbsp;&middot;&nbsp; <a href="http://www.pmachine.com">pMachine, Inc.</a></p>
</div>

</body>
</html>