Maxlength using Database Field Lengths

July 6th, 2007 - brett

I wanted to have a maxlength="something" in my forms, but I needed the value to come from the database at least during development. When it goes live the data will cache so it will still be fast.

1. Create a cache folder in app/tmp/cache/fieldlengths

2. Create in app/controllers/components/fieldlength.php

 class FieldlengthComponent extends Object

{

  var $controller = true;

  function startup(&$controller)

  {

    $this->controller = &$controller;

    $controllerClass = $this->controller->name;

    $modelClass = $this->controller->modelClass;

    if (!$fieldLengths = cache('fieldlengths'.DS.$modelClass))

    {

      $cols = $this->controller->$modelClass->query('DESC ' . $this->controller->$modelClass->table);

          foreach ($cols as $column) {

              if (isset($column['COLUMNS'])) {

              if (preg_match('/^(?!.*int).*(?:[(]([0-9]+(?:,[0-9]+)?)[)])$/', $column['COLUMNS']['Type'], $regs))

              {

                $fieldLengths[$column['COLUMNS']['Field']] = $regs[1];

          }

          elseif (strpos($column['COLUMNS']['Type'],'date')!==false)

          {

                $fieldLengths[$column['COLUMNS']['Field']] = 'date';

          }

              }

          }

      $fieldLengths = CACHE_CHECK ? cache('fieldlengths'.DS.$table, serialize($fieldLengths)) : serialize($fieldLengths);

    }

    $this->controller->set('field_lengths', unserialize($fieldLengths));

  }

}

3. Add this to app/views/[-tablename-]/form.thtml
echo $html->input('[-Model-]/[-field-]', array('size' => '50', 'maxlength' => $field_lengths['[-field-]']));