cakephp: model validation rules, form field, ===

Question

After studying Miles Jones cupcake forum plugin, I have a couple of questions here:

1)Is it compulsory for each field (that appears in a model's validation rules) to be a field in a database table? I found the following validation rules in the User model of cupcake forum plugin. oldPassword and newPassword are not fields in the users table. I'm confused coz' I thought I should only make validation rules for fields of table.

public $validate = array(
    'username' => array(
        'isUnique' => array(
            'rule' => 'isUnique',
            'message' => 'That username has already been taken',
            'on' => 'create'
        ),
        'notEmpty' => array(
            'rule' => 'notEmpty',
            'message' => 'Please enter a username'
        )
    ),
    'password' => array(
        'rule' => 'notEmpty',
        'message' => 'Please enter a password'
    ),
    'oldPassword' => array(
        'rule' => array('isPassword'),
        'message' => 'The old password did not match'
    ),
    'newPassword' => array(
        'isMatch' => array(
            'rule' => array('isMatch', 'confirmPassword'),
            'message' => 'The passwords did not match'
        ),
        'custom' => array(
            'rule' => array('custom', '/^[-_a-zA-Z0-9]+$/'),
            'message' => 'Your password may only be alphanumeric'
        ),
        'between' => array(
            'rule' => array('between', 6, 20),
            'message' => 'Your password must be 6-20 characters in length'
        ),
        'notEmpty' => array(
            'rule' => 'notEmpty',
            'message' => 'Please enter a password'
        )
    ),
    'email' => array(
        'isUnique' => array(
            'rule' => 'isUnique',
            'message' => 'That email has already been taken',
            'on' => 'create'
        ),
        'email' => array(
            //'rule' => array('email', true),//boolean true as second parameter verifies that the host for the address is valid -- to be uncommented once website is uploaded
            'rule' => array('email'),
            'message' => 'Your email is invalid'
        ),
        'notEmpty' => array(
            'rule' => 'notEmpty',
            'message' => 'Your email is required'
        )
    )
);

2)Does each form field need to be a field in a database table?

For example when I ask a user to signup there will be: username, email addr, password and confirm password. But confirm password field doesn't need to be a field in a table right? Is that a good practice?

I found the following isMatch function in form_app_model.php:

/**
 * Validates two inputs against each other
 * @access public
 * @param array $data
 * @param string $confirmField
 * @return boolean
 */
public function isMatch($data, $confirmField) {
    $data = array_values($data);
    $var1 = $data[0];
    $var2 = (isset($this->data[$this->name][$confirmField])) ? $this->data[$this->name][$confirmField] : '';

    return ($var1 === $var2);
}

Can someone tell me on what is === in the last line of the above code?

Thank you.

Answer 1

That mean exactly equal (without type conversion) . For example: if y = 25, then y === 25 is true and y == '25' is true, but y === '25' is not true.