Unable to save blank multiselect value in system configuration in Magento 2

Question

I have created multiselect in system.xml with backend_model and customize afterSave function and return parent::afterSave().

<field id="populatavailablebanknetbanking" translate="label" type="multiselect" sortOrder="30" showInDefault="1" showInWebsite="1" showInStore="1">
    <label>Available Bank for Netbanking (Popular)</label>
    <source_model>Vendor\Module\Model\Config\Availablebanknetbanking</source_model>
    <backend_model>Vendor\Module\Model\Config\Backend\Popularbanknetbanking</backend_model>
    <comment>This selected depends on the Available Bank for Netbanking options. You can only select from the selection made above for the popular bank.</comment>
</field>

It's working fine with saving multiselect value in the database but when I unselect all the options from multiselect, it saves recently saved options from the database instead of clear the options from the database.

Answer 1

You can use:

<can_be_empty>1</can_be_empty>

Like:

<field id="list" translate="label" type="multiselect" sortOrder="3" showInDefault="1" showInWebsite="1" showInStore="0">
    <label>Customer Groups</label>
    <source_model>Commercepundit\Simpleshipping\Model\Adminhtml\System\Config\Source\Customer\Group</source_model>
    <can_be_empty>1</can_be_empty>
</field>

Answer 2

Magento have property <can_be_empty>. Which allows you to save blank value in database.

<field id="populatavailablebanknetbanking" translate="label" type="multiselect" sortOrder="30" showInDefault="1" showInWebsite="1" showInStore="1">
    <label>Available Bank for Netbanking (Popular)</label>
    <source_model>Vendor\Module\Model\Config\Availablebanknetbanking</source_model>
    <backend_model>Vendor\Module\Model\Config\Backend\Popularbanknetbanking</backend_model>
    <can_be_empty>1</can_be_empty>
    <comment>This selected depends on the Available Bank for Netbanking options. You can only select from the selection made above for the popular bank.</comment>
</field>  

Answer 3

The <can_be_empty/> tag is used with multiselect fields. The short version is, if you wish to a allow “no selection” to be a valid configuration, use this field.

What happens behind the scenes is if can_be_empty is true, the system renders a hidden field on the System Configuration page

File: lib/Varien/Data/Form/Element/Multiselect.php

if ($this->getCanBeEmpty()) 
{
    $html .= '<input type="hidden" name="' . parent::getName() . '" value="" />';
}

which ensure the form processing code will accept an empty selection.