NAME

HTML::FormHandler::Model::CDBI - Class::DBI model class for HTML::FormHandler

SYNOPSIS

package MyApplication::Form::User;
use strict;
use base 'HTML::FormHandler::Model::CDBI';


# Associate this form with a CDBI class
has '+item_class' => ( default => 'MyDB::User' );

# Define the fields that this form will operate on
sub field_list {
    return {
        [
            name        => 'Text',
            age         => 'PosInteger',
            sex         => 'Select',
            birthdate   => 'DateTimeDMYHM',
        ]
    };
}

DESCRIPTION

A Class::DBI database model for HTML::FormHandler

I don't use CDBI, so this module almost certainly doesn't work. It is only being left here as a starting point in case somebody is interested in getting it to work.

Patches and tests gratefully accepted.

METHODS

item_class

The name of your database class.

init_item

This is called first time $form->item is called. It does the equivalent of:

return $self->item_class->retrieve( $self->item_id );

guess_field_type

Pass in a column and assigns field types. Must set $self->item_class to return the related item class. Returns the type in scalar context, returns the type and maybe the related table in list context.

Currently returns:

DateTime        - for a has_a relationship that isa DateTime
Select          - for a has_a relationship
Multiple        - for a has_many
DateTime        - if the field ends in _time
Text            - otherwise

lookup_options

Returns a array reference of key/value pairs for the column passed in. Calls $field->label_column to get the column name to use as the label. The default is "name". The labels are sorted by Perl's cmp sort.

If there is an "active" column then only active are included, with the exception being if the form (item) has currently selected the inactive item. This allows existing records that reference inactive items to still have those as valid select options. The inactive labels are formatted with brackets to indicate in the select list that they are inactive.

The active column name is determined by calling:

$active_col = $form->can( 'active_column' )
    ? $form->active_column
    : $field->active_column;

Which allows setting the name of the active column globally if your tables are consistantly named (all lookup tables have the same column name to indicate they are active), or on a per-field basis.

In addition, if the foreign class is the same as the item's class (or the class returned by item_class) then options pointing to item are excluded. The reason for this is for a table column that points to the same table (self referenced), such as a "parent" column. The assumption is that a record cannot be its own parent.

init_value

Populate $field->value with object ids from the CDBI object. If the column expands to more than one object then an array ref is set.

validate_model

Validates fields that are dependent on the model. Currently, "unique" fields are checked to make sure they are unique.

This validation happens after other form validation. The form already has any field values entered in $field->value at this point.

validate_unique

Checks that the value for the field is not currently in the database.

items_same

Returns true if the two passed in cdbi objects are the same object. If both are undefined returns true.

obj_key

returns a key for a given object, or undef if the object is undefined.

AUTHOR

Gerda Shank, gshank@cpan.org

Based on the original source code of Form::Processor::Model::CDBI by Bill Moseley

COPYRIGHT

This library is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

cpanm HTML::FormHandler

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install HTML::FormHandler