/ 
Data-MuForm-0.04
River stage one • 3 direct dependents • 3 total dependents
/ Data::MuForm::Field::Repeatable

NAME

Data::MuForm::Field::Repeatable - repeatable (array) field

VERSION

version 0.04

SYNOPSIS

In a form, for an array of hashrefs, equivalent to a 'has_many' database relationship.

has_field 'addresses' => ( type => 'Repeatable' );
has_field 'addresses.address_id' => ( type => 'PrimaryKey' );
has_field 'addresses.street';
has_field 'addresses.city';
has_field 'addresses.state';

In a form, for an array of single fields (not directly equivalent to a database relationship) use the 'contains' pseudo field name:

has_field 'tags' => ( type => 'Repeatable' );
has_field 'tags.contains' => ( type => 'Text',
     apply => [ { check => ['perl', 'programming', 'linux', 'internet'],
                  message => 'Not a valid tag' } ]
);

or use 'contains' with single fields which are compound fields:

has_field 'addresses' => ( type => 'Repeatable' );
has_field 'addresses.contains' => ( type => '+MyAddress' );

If the MyAddress field contains fields 'address_id', 'street', 'city', and 'state', then this syntax is functionally equivalent to the first method where the fields are declared with dots ('addresses.city');

You can pass attributes to the 'contains' field by supplying an 'init_instance' hashref.

has_field 'addresses' => ( type => 'Repeatable,
   init_instance => { wrapper_attr => { class => ['hfh', 'repinst'] } },
);

DESCRIPTION

This class represents an array. It can either be an array of hashrefs (compound fields) or an array of single fields.

The 'contains' keyword is used for elements that do not have names because they are not hash elements.

This field node will build arrays of fields from the parameters or an initial object, or empty fields for an empty form.

The name of the element fields will be an array index, starting with 0. Therefore the first array element can be accessed with:

$form->field('tags')->field('0')
$form->field('addresses')->field('0')->field('city')

or using the shortcut form:

$form->field('tags.0')
$form->field('addresses.0.city')

The array of elements will be in $form->field('addresses')->fields. The subfields of the elements will be in a fields array in each element.

foreach my $element ( $form->field('addresses')->fields )
{
   foreach my $field ( $element->fields )
   {
      # do something
   }
}

Every field that has a 'fields' array will also have an 'error_fields' array containing references to the fields that contain errors.

Complications

When new elements are created by a Repeatable field in a database form an attempt is made to re-load the Repeatable field from the database, because otherwise the repeatable elements will not have primary keys. Although this works, if you have included other fields in your repeatable elements that do *not* come from the database, the defaults/values must be able to be loaded in a way that works when the form is initialized from the database model (row). This is only an issue if you re-present the form after the database update succeeds.

ATTRIBUTES

index

This attribute contains the next index number available to create an additional array element.

num_when_empty

This attribute (default 1) indicates how many empty fields to present in an empty form which hasn't been filled from parameters or database rows.

num_extra

When the field results are built from an existing object (model or init_values) an additional number of repeatable elements will be created equal to this number. Default is 0.

add_extra

When a form is submitted and the field results are built from the input parameters, it's not clear when or if an additional repeatable element might be wanted. The method 'add_extra' will add an empty repeatable element.

$form->process( params => {....} );
$form->field('my_repeatable')->add_extra(1);

This might be useful if the form is being re-presented to the user.

AUTHOR

Gerda Shank

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2017 by Gerda Shank.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.