required field for other model's field in yii - frameworks

Question

I need to store a record in First Model. It has around 10 fields. Now, I need to apply required rule for one field which i'm storing in SECOND model and I'm getting these values for this field from Third model.(it is a drop down field)
how can i make this field mandatory in yii??
can any one help please..
Many Thanks,

Answer 1

You can add additional attributes and rules to a model. You don't have to only use attributes that directly relate to fields in your database table. Let's look at a basic example. You have a user (User) table which has the following fields:
id
email
password
And you have another table which stores user profile (UserProfile) information which has the structure:
id
user_id
country
When the user creates their account, you would have a form that captures their information. Your User model would have rules like:
array('email, password', 'required'),
array('email', 'unique', 'message'=>'Email already in use'),
...
You can add an attribute for country to your User model like so:
class User extends CActiveRecord {
public $country;
...
And then in your rules you can add the new attribute:
array('email, password, country', 'required'),
array('email', 'unique', 'message'=>'Email already in use'),
...
The country attribute will now be a part of your User model. You can now add that to your form:
<?php echo $form->dropDownList($model,'country',CHtml::listData(Country::model()->findAll(),'id','country_name'),array('empty'=>'-- select a country --')); ?>
Now on your form submit, the $model->validate() method will validate the country field. You can save this manually to your second model (UserProfile), something like:
if(isset($_POST['User'])){
if ($model->validate()){
$user_profile = new UserProfile;
$user_profile->user_id = $model->id;
$user_profile->country = $model->country;
$user_profile->save();
...
Hopefully that answers your question.