Fields getting NULL after editing

Question

I have developed Zend 2 application. There is form to edit existing data. Some fields in table is not included in the form. Thus, when editing those records, fields not in form are saved as NULL. How to fix it ?

Model -

namespace Employee\Model;

class Employee
{
    public $id;
    public $active;
    public $type;
    public $mailing_address;
    public $permanent_address;

...

public function exchangeArray($data)
{
$this->id     = (isset($data['id'])) ? $data['id'] : 0;
$this->active = (isset($data['active'])) ? $data['active'] : 0;
$this->type  = (isset($data['type'])) ? $data['type'] : null;
$this->mailing_address  = (isset($data['mailing_address'])) ? $data['mailing_address'] : null;
$this->permanent_address  = (isset($data['permanent_address'])) ? $data['permanent_address'] : null;

...

Table -

public function saveEmployee(Employee $employee) {

        $data = array(
            'active' => $employee->active,
            'type' => $employee->type,
            'mailing_address' => $employee->mailing_address,
            'permanent_address' => $employee->permanent_address,
...

$id = (int) $employee->id;
    if ($id == 0) {
        $inserted = $this->tableGateway->insert($data);
        $inserted_id = $this->tableGateway->lastInsertValue;
    } else {
        if ($this->getEmployee($id)) {
            $this->tableGateway->update($data, array('id' => $id));
            $inserted_id = $id;
        } else {
            throw new \Exception('Employee does not exist');
        }
    }
    return $inserted_id;
    //\Zend\Debug\Debug::dump($inserted_ids);
}

Controller -

$employeeForm = new EmployeeForm();
$employeeForm->bind($employee);
$request = $this->getRequest();

if ($request->isPost()) {
    $employeeForm->setData($request->getPost());

    if ($employeeForm->isValid()) {
       $this->getEmployeeTable()->saveEmployee($employee);
    }
}

Assume type dosn't have form filed defined. So, it shouldn't get NULL when save.

How to fix it ?

Answer 1

try handling it with mysql. use the [default] function of each field wisely

CREATE TABLE `table` (
     `type` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
     .......................

Answer 2

If you are editing an existing record then you would need to first load all the data for that entity and then update the fields that have changed. In ZF2 this is achieved via a form hydrator; as you bind the 'populated' object to the form.

Therefore your controller code would need to change.

EmpolyeeController.php

// Fetch the form from the service manager
// allowing it to be created via factory and have our
// hydrator and entity class injected
$form = $this->serviceLocator()->get('MyModule\Form\EmployeeForm');
$request = $this->getRequest();
$id = $this->params('id'); // Employee ID as route param

// Load the employee data from the database
// (this will vary dependning your own strategy, however
// a service layer is assumed)
$employee = $this->employeeService->findById($id);

// Bind the **hydrated** entity to the form
$form->bind($employee);

if ($request->isPost()) {

    // set the modified post data
    $form->setData($request->getPost());

    if ($form->isValid()) {

        // Retrive the validated and updated entity
        $employee = $form->getData();
    } 
}

You will also need to register a form factory to inject the hydrator (an other dependancies).

Module.php

public function getFormElementConifg()
{
    return array(
        'factories' => array(
            'MyModule\Form\EmployeeForm' => function($formElementManager) {

                $serviceManager = $formElementManager->getServiceLocator();
                $hydrator = $serviceManager->get('MyModule\Stdlib\Hydrator\EmployeeHydrator');

                $form = new Form\EmployeeForm();

                $form->setHydrator($hydrator);
                $form->bind(new Entity\Employee());


                return $form;
            }
        ),
    )
}