How to reuse codeigniter form on multiple pages - forms

Question

I have a simple search form I want to reuse across multiple pages in my codeigniter application. For example, right now I have a search form in the sidebar and I'm planning on displaying that sidebar on the index, about, and other pages.
I want to have the form validation display errors on the same page the users submits the form from.
For example:
User is on About page.
User submits form with invalid data
User sees error in the sidebar on the About page
and
User is on Index page.
User submits form with invalid data
User sees error in the sidebar on the Index page
But I'd like to reuse that form validation logic. I just want it to display the error on whichever page the user posted from.
Any ideas how to do that? Sorry for the noob question, I'm pretty new to CI.

Answer 1

Here you have to think globally.
Step.1 : Make one view file : display.php
which contains :
<div id = "main">
<div id = "header">
[load header file here]
</div>
<?php
if(validation_errors() != '') {
?>
<div id = "error">
<?=validation_errors()?>
</div>
<?php
}
?>
<div id = "content">
<?=$page?>
</div>
<div id = "footer">
[load footer file here]
</div>
</div>
Step.2 : About us Page.(controlller)
.... Your data ....
at end of controller function
$data['page'] = 'aboutus';
$this->load->view('display',$data);

Answer 2

With regards to your comment on the above question you could use Flash data
With the assumption that you have the session library loaded, here is a helper function.
function last_page($page = null){
$ci = get_instance();
if($page === null)
return $ci->session->flashdata('last_page');
$ci->session->set_flashdata('last_page', $page);
}
then you can call last_page('about'); at the top of the about page, and then when you want to find out what the last page you were on was you can just call last_page(); with no params.

Answer 3

In the User Guide, there's different ways to configure sets/groups of rules. Then you can simply have something like:
if ($this->form_validation->run('signup') == FALSE)
{
$this->load->view('myform');
}
else
{
$this->load->view('formsuccess');
}
Which will run your "signup" group of validations. To me, this is the cleanest way to achieve reusable validation rules.

Answer 4

This is a perfectly valid question.
I'm not a PHP expert, nor a CI expert, but the fact is sometimes you want to post to a controller that didn't create the view from which you're posting. Which means posting back to itself is not going to work.
I came across this post on the Ellislab forum:
http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/217176/
On this page, There are 2 methods of going about it. Both of which use flashdata and both of which are totally valid, IMHO.
The first: create a helper function
http://ellislab.com/forums/viewreply/1003010/
The second: extend the CI_Form_Validation Class.
http://ellislab.com/forums/viewreply/1047536/
The second is the way I went as it seems cleanest although some may argue whether the form validation class should know anything about flash data.