Same form to includ new client and edit existing client. How to use "set value"?

Question

I'm using same form to new client and edit client in Code Igniter. Sometimes I'll include new client so the field must be empty. However, sometimes I'll edit a client and I must put respect value to a field. For example:

echo form_input('client_name', $client_to_edit['client_name']);

How can I use "set_values()" and $client_to_edit['client_name'] to pass data to the field?

Answer 1

set_value() is really only needed for form_validation and in this case you'll probably need that too. Basically you need to determine if the form is editing or for a new client, if editing it needs to run a query on the database to return that users data and pass it to a variable.

echo form_input('client_name',set_value
('client_name',($user['client_name'] ? $user['client_name']:'')));

Basically what's happening is if the form is editing you're populating the $user variable in the controller with that users data. The set value statement has 3 options. First if the form is returning from form_validation it sets it to whatever was entered when the form was posted, if there is no post data it then looks to see if $user['client_name'] exists, if it does it uses that, if it doesn't it just returns blank.