How to save a binary directly to a database table field (JSON data) in Yii? - forms

Question

I'm working on a Yii project with a database, containing a table, where almost all it's data is saved in a field as JSON (it's crazy, but it is so as it is):
id INTEGER
user_id INTEGER
data LONGTEXT
This "JSON field" data has following structure and contains inter alia an image:
{
"id":"1",
"foo":"bar",
...
"bat":{
"baz":"buz",
"name":"Joe Doe",
"my_picture":"iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAGQA...", <-- binary
...
}
}
Displaying it is no problem, but now I want to make the data ediable. My form looks like this:
<?php
$form=$this->beginWidget('CActiveForm', array(
'id' => 'insurance-form',
'htmlOptions' => array('enctype' => 'multipart/form-data'),
'enableAjaxValidation'=>false,
));
?>
<div class="row">
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model, 'provider_name'); ?>
<?php
echo $form->textField($model, 'data[provider][name]', array(
'size'=>60, 'maxlength'=>255, "autocomplete"=>"off"
));
?>
<?php echo $form->error($model, 'data[provider][name]'); ?>
</div>
It works.
I know, that for image upload I need fileField(...), but cannot find out, how to configure it in order to save the image directly to the database. How to do his?

Answer 1

view
<div class="row">
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model, 'provider_name'); ?>
<?php
echo $form->fileField($model, 'data[provider][name]', array());
?>
<?php echo $form->error($model, 'data[provider][name]'); ?>
</div>
controller
public function actionUpdate($id)
{
$model = $this->loadModel($id);
if(isset($_POST['External'])) {
$modelDataArray = $model->data;
// adding the image as string to the POSted data
if (isset($_FILES['MyModel']['name']['data']['provider']['picture'])) {
$_POST['MyModel']['data']['provider']['picture'] = base64_encode(
file_get_contents($_FILES['MyModel']['tmp_name']['data']['provider']['picture'])
);
}
$inputFieldData = $_POST['MyModel']['data'];
$updatedDataArray = array_replace_recursive($modelDataArray, $inputFieldData);
$model->attributes = $_POST['MyModel'];
$updatedDataJson = json_encode($updatedDataArray);
$model->setAttribute('data', $updatedDataJson);
if($model->save()) {
$this->redirect(array('view', 'id' => $model->id));
}
}
$this->render('update', array(
'model' => $model,
));
}
CActiveRecord model
no special changes