Can I create a form in cake php with fields that don't correspond to a model?

Question

I have a form for gathering an email address, which corresponds to my User model. I'd like the form to also have a text field for an email message, but I don't need the message saved to my database.

echo $this->Form->create('User', array('action' => 'invite','controller' => 'users'));
echo $this->Form->input('User.from', array('label'=>"Your email",'value'=>'your         email','class'=>"",'type'=>'email'));
echo $this->Form->input('User.to', array('label'=>"Your friend's", 'value'=>"your friend's email",'class'=>"",'type'=>'email'));
echo $this->Form->textarea('User.message', array('label'=>'Your message', 'value'=>"some message"));
echo $this->Form->end(array('label'=>'Invite', 'class'=>'buttonstyle'));

This works, but only if I add a message column to my Users table, which I don't need. I'd rather do something like this

echo $this->Form->textarea('message', array('label'=>'Your message', 'value'=>"some message"));

But that doesn't work, I guess because "message" isn't associated with a model. Is there a better way to do this?

What do you mean by doesn't work?

tigrang
– tigrang

2012-10-09 22:42:02 +00:00
Commented Oct 9, 2012 at 22:42 — tigrang
– tigrang, Commented Oct 9, 2012 at 22:42

mark · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-09 23:22:52Z

what do you mean? of course that works, it is a pretty normal/trivial thing to have form fields that do not correspond to a db table field.

but your initial question is wrong. they usually always belong to a model (a scope so to speak), but not necessarily to a db table. you could even have them without any model related to it. But in most cases this does not make much sense.

the question is: do you need cake magic for them (auto-generate checkbox/textarea via input() based on the type)? do you want validation for them? then you need to consider at least some schema entries for them.

see http://www.dereuromark.de/2011/12/15/tools-plugin-part-2-contact-form/ for an example how to work with _schema in the model to get all that (as you would with real db fields).

oh, and

'controller' => 'users' doesnt work as you put it, there is only 'action' and 'url' key.
'value' is just wrong (use 'default' instead)

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