Sticky form elements in CodeIgniter

It is good for user experience to offer feedback; we do this in the preceding sections with validation_errors(), but it is also useful to keep user data in form elements to save them having to re-type everything, should there be an error. To do this, we need to use CodeIgniter's set_value() function.

Getting ready

Make sure that you load $this->load->helper('form'), from within the __constructor() of the controller; however, you can always autoload the helper from /path.to/codeigniter/application/config/autoload.php.

How to do it...

We're going to edit the /path/to/codeigniter/application/views/new_record.php file.

  1. Amend the file to show the following (changes in bold):
    <?php echo form_open('form/submit_form') ; ?> 
    <?php if (validation_errors()) : ?> 
        <h3>Whoops! There was an error:</h3> 
        <p><?php echo validation_errors(); ?></p> 
    <?php endif; ?> 
    <table border="0" > 
        <tr> 
            <td>First Name</td> 
            <td><?php echo form_input(array('name' => 'first_name', 'id' => 'first_name', 'value' => set_value('first_name', ''), 'maxlength' => '100', 'size' => '50', 'style' => 'width:100%')); ?></td> 
        </tr>   
        <tr> 
            <td>Last Name</td> 
            <td><?php echo form_input(array('name' => 'last_name', 'id' => 'last_name', 'value' => set_value('last_name', ''), 'maxlength' => '100', 'size' => '50', 'style' => 'width:100%')); ?></td> 
        </tr> 
        <tr> 
            <td>User Email</td> 
            <td><?php echo form_input(array('name' => 'email', 'id' => 'email', 'value' => set_value('email', ''), 'maxlength' => '100', 'size' => '50', 'style' => 'width:100%')); ?></td> 
        </tr> 
        <tr> 
            <td>Do you want to be contacted in the future?</td> 
            <td><?php echo 'Yes'.form_checkbox('contact', '1', TRUE).'No'.form_checkbox('contact', '0', FALSE); ?></td> 
        </tr> 
        <tr> 
            <td>What is 10 + 5?</td> 
            <td><?php echo form_input(array('name' => 'answer', 'id' => 'answer', 'value' => set_value('answer', ''), 'maxlength' => '100', 'size' => '50', 'style' => 'width:100%')); ?></td> 
        </tr> 
    </table> 
    <?php echo form_submit('submit', 'Submit'), ?> 
    or <?php echo anchor('form', 'cancel'), ?> 
<?php echo form_close(); ?>

How it works...

Essentially, it is exactly the same functionality as the Validating User Input recipe, except that now the CodeIgniter function, set_value(), populates the form element value with the data submitted previously by the user.

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