belongs_to¶

Single Select fields will handle 'belongs_to' relationships, where the related table is used to construct a selection list from the database.

many_to_many¶

Multiple Select fields use a 'many_to_many' pseudo-relation to retrieve the selection list from the database.

   has_field 'roles' => (
      type => 'Multiple',
      label_column => 'role',
   );

You need to supply 'label_column' to indicate which column should be used as label.

A Compound field can represent a single relation. A Repeatable field will map onto a multiple relationship.

More information is available from:

HTML::FormHandler

HTML::FormHandler::Manual

HTML::FormHandler::Field

schema¶

Stores the schema that is either passed in, created from the model name in the controller, or created from the Catalyst context and the item_class in the plugin.

validate_model¶

The place to put validation that requires database-specific lookups. Subclass this method in your form. Validation of unique fields is called from this method.

update_model¶

Updates the database. If you want to do some extra database processing (such as updating a related table) this is the method to subclass in your form.

This routine allows the use of non-database (non-column, non-relationship) accessors in your result source class. It identifies form fields as column, relationship, select, multiple, or other. Column and other fields are processed and update is called on the row. Then relationships are processed.

If the row doesn't exist (no primary key or row object was passed in), then a row is created.

lookup_options¶

This method is used with "Single" and "Multiple" field select lists ("single", "filter", and "multi" relationships). It returns an array reference of key/value pairs for the column passed in. The column name defined in $field->label_column will be used as the label. The default label_column is "name". The labels are sorted by Perl's cmp sort.

If there is an "active" column then only active values are included, except if the form (item) has currently selected the inactive item. This allows existing records that reference inactive items to still have those as valid select options. The inactive labels are formatted with brackets to indicate in the select list that they are inactive.

The active column name is determined by calling:
$active_col = $form->can( 'active_column' )
? $form->active_column
: $field->active_column;

This allows setting the name of the active column globally if your tables are consistantly named (all lookup tables have the same column name to indicate they are active), or on a per-field basis.

The column to use for sorting the list is specified with "sort_column". The currently selected values in a Multiple list are grouped at the top (by the Multiple field class).

init_value¶

This method sets a field's initial value. it is set when values are initially loaded from an item, init_object or field defaults.

validate_unique¶

For fields that are marked "unique", checks the database for uniqueness. The unique constraints registered in the DBIC result source (see "add_unique_constraint" in DBIx::Class::ResultSource) will also be inspected for uniqueness unless the field's 'unique' attribute is set to false. Alternatively, you can use the "unique_constraints" attribute to limit uniqueness checking to only a select group of unique constraints. Error messages can be specified in the "unique_messages" attribute. Here's an example where you might want to specify a unique widget name for a given department:

   has '+unique_constraints' => ( default => sub { ['department_widget_name'] } );
   has '+unique_messages' => (
      default => sub {
         { department_widget_name => "Please choose a unique widget name for this department" };
      }
   );

source¶

Returns a DBIx::Class::ResultSource object for this Result Class.

resultset¶

This method returns a resultset from the "item_class" specified in the form ("$schema->resultset( $form->item_class )")