Validating the cleaned output of HtmlHelper::dateTimeOptionTag()
Posted on 17/10/06 by Felix Geisendörfer
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Ok, let's make this short and painless. I just needed to validate the (cleaned) output of an HtmlHelper::dateTimeOptionTag() to be a correct datetime value matching this format:
2006-12-31 23:16:12
But for some reason I couldn't find a build-in Validator for it, so I had to to write my own:
'/^[12][0-9]{3}-(0[1-9]|1[012])-(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01]) ([01][0-9]|[2][0-4]):([0-5][0-9]|[0-9]):([0-5][0-9]|[0-9])$/'
Long live the power of regular expressions!
Here is an example how you would use this in a Model:
{
var $name = "Event";
var $validate = array('title' => VALID_NOT_EMPTY,
'start' => '/^[12][0-9]{3}-(0[1-9]|1[012])-(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01]) ([01][0-9]|[2][0-4]):([0-5][0-9]|[0-9]):([0-5][0-9]|[0-9])$/');
}
I'm surprised no one had this problem before, or am I missing something ; )?
--Felix Geisendörfer aka the_undefined
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Pierre: I agree, however, since I don't expect the Admin of the web site I'm building to create his own post with wrong information I think it's safe to ignore those cases ; ).
Felix Geisendorfer's Blog: Validating the cleaned output of HtmlHelper::dateTimeOptionTag()...
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Felix,
I use a JavaScript Calender input on plain text fields for my dates instead of the dataTimeOptionTag() helper. Do you know of a way to format dates coming in and out of the database? I'm attempting to use afterFind() and beforeSave(), but that's proven to be a nightmare as I have to take every potential return from find() into account. What I'd really like is a set of getters and setters for each field in my model. Does CakePHP have anything like that? Do you know if it's in the works?
Thanks for all your great posting, Felix,
TheIdeaMan
TheIdeaMan: If I was you I would create custom cleanUpFields() method in your Controller (don't forget to call parent::cleanUpFields($model) in it), and format your date in there. So in all Controller functions that save a date from your JS calendar, this function would need to be called upfront.
YYYY-MM-DD (without HH:MM:SS) is also acceptable.
So it's better to use
'dat' => '/^[12][0-9]{3}-(0[1-9]|1[012])-(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])( ([01][0-9]|[2][0-4]):([0-5][0-9]|[0-9])(:([0-5][0-9]|[0-9]))?)?$/',
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There is one problem though: your regex doesn't prevent impossible data like 2006-02-31.
I wrote this function (which I put in app_model.php):
function isDate($date)
{
if ($date && preg_match('/^\d{4}-\d?\d-\d?\d$/', $date)) // match YYYY-MM-DD
{
$date = explode('-',$date);
return checkdate($date[1], $date[2], $date[0]);
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
You can easily extend it to add a time validator.