Codeigniter set default form value from Controller to View

Question

I just got tired to find out, why the below warning message is generated with my Codeigniter Project.

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: Creating default object from empty value

Filename: controllers/person.php

Line Number: 268

In My person Controller,

function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct();

        // load library
        $this->load->library(array('table','form_validation'));

        // load helper
        $this->load->helper('url');
        $this->load->config('array_constant', TRUE);

        // load model
        $this->load->model('Person_model','',TRUE);
    }
// set empty default form field values
    function _set_fields()
    {
        Line No: 268 $this->form_data->id = '';
        $this->form_data->name = '';
        $this->form_data->gender = '';
        $this->form_data->dob = '';
        $this->form_data->district = '';
        $this->form_data->education = '';
        $this->form_data->occupation = '';
        $this->form_data->annual_income = '';
        $this->form_data->company_name = '';
        $this->form_data->description = '';
    }

In My View file,

<table width="100%">
          <tr>
            <td width="30%">ID</td>
            <td><input type="text" name="id" disabled="disable" class="text" value="<?php echo set_value('id'); ?>"/></td>
            <input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php echo set_value('id',$this->form_data->id); ?>"/>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td valign="top">Name<span style="color:red;">*</span></td>
            <td><input type="text" name="name" class="text" value="<?php echo set_value('name',$this->form_data->name); ?>"/>
<?php echo form_error('name'); ?>
            </td>
        </tr>

Any idea or suggestions to suppress the above warning!

echo "<pre>";
        var_dump($this->form_data);
        echo "</pre>";

object(stdClass)#21 (10) {
  ["id"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["name"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["gender"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["dob"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["district"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["education"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["occupation"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["annual_income"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["company_name"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["description"]=>
  string(0) ""
}

can you try var_dump($this->form_data); please and report here the dump? — Filippo oretti
– Filippo oretti, Commented Jan 1, 2013 at 16:28
I do notice you aren't setting the 2nd argument for set_value('id'); not sure if that is what is causing the problem. — user1592648
– user1592648, Commented Jan 1, 2013 at 16:29
Thanks for your quick reply.Hi Badaboooooom, I have updated my question. — Raja
– Raja, Commented Jan 1, 2013 at 16:34

No Results Found · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-01 17:35:28Z

4

This notice is generated in PHP 5.4 and up. It's not an error, it's a notice - intended to help you debug your application and raise awareness of possible problems.

When you call _set_fields initially, $this->form_data is NULL, then you attempt to treat a NULL like an object with this line:

$this->form_data->id = '';

NULL can't have properties like "id", so the notice is telling you that PHP assumed you wanted an object, so it made one automatically for you.

There are a lot of ways to solve this that entail some restructuring of your code, but a simple solution to silence the notice:

$this->form_data = new stdClass;
$this->form_data->id = '';
// etc.

A better solution is to use a class for your object, very simple example:

$this->form_data = new MY_Form_Data_Object();

class MY_Form_Data_Object { // use a better name that describes what this is
    public $name = '';
    public $gender = '';
    public $dob = '';
    // etc.
    // add some helpful methods here when needed, like validation
    // maybe a constructor to initialize some values
}

edited Jan 1, 2013 at 17:35

answered Jan 1, 2013 at 17:30

No Results Found

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1 Comment

Raja Over a year ago

Wow. Its great... I used your simple solution to suppress the warning! Again thanks for your great suggestion.

Oritm · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-20 13:35:49Z

2

I had the same issue, except that i was not able to change all my code.

To let CI suppress the warning i set the ENVIRONMENT to production in the index.php:

//define('ENVIRONMENT', 'development');
define('ENVIRONMENT', 'production');

Basically CI sets the error reporting

error_reporting(0);

answered Apr 20, 2013 at 13:35

Oritm

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