fatfree framework, repopulate fields after unsuccessful validation

Question

I have GET route which shows the contact form, and POST route when user submits the form, then in my controller method I do some validation tests on data being submitted.. how would I now send user back to form if data is not valid, with entered data being re-populated in form fields?

I know I can use isset(@POST.fieldname) in my template, but what's the right way of sending entered data back to that view, and how to redirect user back to the form? Is the f3->reroute method right way of doing that?

Answer 1

I think you can take as a rule to include input data inside your form views. This way, any form view will be easily reusable with any source of data.

For example:

Your form view:

<form action="" method="post">
  <input type="text" name="email" value="{{ @@input.email }}"/>
  <input type="text" name="message" value="{{ @@input.message }}"/>
  <button type="submit">Submit form</button>
</form>

Your controller class:

class myController {

  function get($f3) {
    $this->renderForm();
  }

  function post($f3) {
    $post=$f3->clean($_POST);
    //validate form data here
    if ($form_validated) {//valid form data

    } else //invalid form data
      $this->renderForm($post);
  }

  protected function renderForm($input=array()) {
    $tpl=Template::instance();
    //variant 1:
    echo $tpl->render('form.html','text/html',array('input'=>$input))
    // or variant 2:
    Base::instance()->set('input',$input);
    echo $tpl->render('form.html');
  }

}

In some other contexts, you can feed a form view with data coming from a db mapper (for example when editing an entry from a back-office): $this->renderForm($mapper->cast())