When Setting autoHydratedEntityFormInput to true non required fields are not saved

[JonathanHindi]

When setting $autoHydrateEntityFromInput = true; non required fields in the $rules array are not saved.

Table Structure:

Category Table
-- title
-- description

Model $rules array:

/**
 * Ardent validation rules
 *
 * @var array
 */
public static $rules = array(
  'title'       => 'required'
);

Controller Store Action

/**
 * Store a newly created resource in storage.
 *
 * @return Response
 */
public function store()
{
    $category = new Category;

    if( $category->save() ){
        return Api::response(201, 'Category Created Sucessfully', $category);
    }

    // Get validation errors (see Ardent package)
    $error = $category->errors()->all();

    return Api::response(500, $error);
}

The above saves only the title input because it's the only required field.

After setting $autoHydrateEntityFromInput = false; and changing my controller to the following it works as expected:

/**
 * Store a newly created resource in storage.
 *
 * @return Response
 */
public function store()
{
    $category = new Category(Input::all());

    if( $category->save() ){
        return Api::response(201, 'Category Created Sucessfully', $category);
    }

    // Get validation errors (see Ardent package)
    $error = $category->errors()->all();

    return Api::response(500, $error);
}

[jrahmy]

Did you set fillable or guarded properties on your model?

[JonathanHindi]

Yes...

/**
     * The attributes that may not be mass assignable.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $guarded = array('id', 'created_at', 'updated_at');

[laravelbook]

@JonathanHindi - In "auto-hydration" mode, Ardent extracts only those fields from Input::all() which have explicitly been defined in the validation $rules array. A user-filled form data could have many artefacts (such as CSRF tokens) which you may not want to store in the database.

In principle, new Category(Input::all()) may cause errors... Input::all() could contain attributes that may not be present in your database table. Adding the field to your validation rules would be a better solution:

public static $rules = array(
  'title'       => 'required',
  'description' => '',
);

[JonathanHindi]

@laravelbook, I thought that new Category(Input::all()) will discard the extra fields, and I didn't know that I can add an empty value property to the $rules array. Anyway thank you. I will add it to the $rules array.

Do you know how should I handle the update method in a restful pattern with ardent to make sure that it will validate before updating. Right now I do something like this, I am not sure that it's the best way to do it.

/**
     * Update the specified resource in storage.
     *
     * @param  int  $id
     * @return Response
     */
    public function update($id)
    {

        $category = Category::find($id);
        $category->fill(Input::all());

        if( $category->save() ){
            return Api::response(200, 'Category Updated Sucessfully', $category);
        }

        // Get validation errors (see Ardent package)
        $error = $category->errors()->all();

        return Api::response(400, $error);
    }

[JonathanHindi]

Another question, Is as I currently understand, I can't use autoHydratedEntityFormInput with json requests. It's mentioned in the docs and I see in the code that It's using Input::all() so how should I go with validating Input::json() using Ardent.

[laravelbook]

@JonathanHindi - you are correct. Eloquent has the $fillable property - you may populate this array to purge un-needed attributes automatically. Alternatively, you could use the Input::only() method:

$filtered_input = Input::only('username', 'password');
$category->fill($filtered_input);

[laravelbook]

@JonathanHindi - Ardent (and Eloquent) works only with PHP associative arrays. You may use json_decode() to convert the JSON data into PHP array. IIRC, the Laravel Input class already does that; Laravel populates the Input class from client-side JSON object (produced by some javascript library) - you can fetch the related property via Input::get()

[JonathanHindi]

Ok Thank you...

[jdesulme]

On a side note @JonathanHindi which package are you using to create your API responses?

[JonathanHindi]

@jdesulme It was a custom package, All it do is formatting the json in a custom way for my API nothing more.

[paul-crashley]

I'm having this same problem, similar setup as OP with everything set correctly.

'Description' is not required so is in the rules array with an empty value, but it will not save unless I put a validation rule in such as 'required'