unique values for cck fields

Posted by yasheshb on September 19, 2007 at 11:57am

hello.

while playing with cck (drupal 5.2 , cck 5.x-1.5) i realised that there's no way to configure a custom field
to hold unique values. one has to do it programmatically (i could be wrong.. since i've not searched a lot
on the sites). i found this relevant article http://drupal.org/node/100586 (and this one - http://drupal.org/node/89599)

will this feature of having a "unique" property of a custom field be implemented in future releases of cck ?

thx

yashesh bhatia

Attachment	Size
foo.php_.txt	1.63 KB
foo.module.txt	3.61 KB

Comments

quick solution..

Posted by yasheshb on September 20, 2007 at 11:33am

coded a quick function that works for me.
hope it's useful to others using cck and having a similar need.

<?php
/**
 <em>
 * This function checks if a value exsists for a cck field
 *
 * @param string $content_type_name         machine readable name of the content type
 *
 * @param string $field_name                machine readable name of field
 *
 * @param mixed $field_value                value that needs to be checked
 *
 * @return boolean                          true if present, else false
 *
 */
function is_cck_field_value_present($content_type_name, $field_name, $field_value) {

  // first lets get field details
$qs =<<<EOD
SELECT *
FROM {node_field}
WHERE field_name = '%s'
EOD;

  $result = db_query($qs, "field_{$field_name}");

  while($row = db_fetch_object($result)) {
    $field_type = $row->type;         // we need the type to determine the mysql type
    $inline_value = $row->db_storage; // inline values are those which are stored in the content type table
  }

  // the where param type for mysql comparisions
  $where_param_type = "";
  switch($field_type) {
    case "text":
      $where_param_type = "'%s'";
      break;
    case "number_integer":
      $where_param_type = "%d";
      break;
    case "number_decimal":
      $where_param_type = "%f";
      break;
  }

  if ($inline_value) {
$qs =<<<EOD
SELECT count(</em>)
FROM {content_type_{$content_type_name}}
WHERE field_{$field_name}<em>value = {$where_param_type}
EOD;
  }
  else {
$qs =<<<EOD
SELECT count(*)
FROM {node} n, {content_field</em>{$field_name}} cf
WHERE n.nid = cf.nid AND n.vid = cf.vid AND cf.field_{$field_name}_value = {$where_param_type} AND n.type = '%s'
EOD;
  }

  $result = db_result(db_query($qs, $field_value, $content_type_name));
  return ($result ? true:false);
} // end of function is_cck_field_value_present
?>

yashesh bhatia.

code gets fudged due to <em>

Posted by yasheshb on September 21, 2007 at 6:13am

the code posted above got fudged due to em tags added for certain asterix and underscore
this i believe is due to markdown syntax

http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#backslash

i tried escaping the asterix and underscore but somehow am not able to pinpoint
the asterix , underscore that are faulty.

i have 2 suggestions for the owners of this site.
1 - please allow file attachments for posting sample code OR
2 - disable any markups within php tags used for posting code.

it's painful to spend enormous amount of time escaping asterixs and underscores from the code for posting purpose.
i may be doing something wrong here too, so would appreciate any help in how to post code with asterixs and underscores

thanks.

yashesh bhatia.

p.s. in the above code please replace the em tags with appropriate asterix or underscore. or send me an email yasheshb@gmail.com
and i'll send you the file.

pps. the above code will also not work for floats due to mysql problems listed below (not sure of postgres though)
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/problems-with-float.html
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/mysql/2005-q4/1241.html

fixed

Posted by moshe weitzman on September 21, 2007 at 6:54am

i rearranged input filters which seems to have fixed your post.

i also enabled uploads for authenticated users.

Where is this function implemented?

Posted by ZrO-1 on October 10, 2007 at 5:06pm

Hi yashesh,
I am kind of new to drupal, and am still learning my way around the system. Your function looks interesting and I'd like to play-around with it but I had a question.

Where is the function used?
In a module? As a custom field in your CCK content type? In a theme template file for the form?

I don't see any hooks being used, so I'm not sure when the function is getting triggered.

used in a custom module..

Posted by yasheshb on October 18, 2007 at 11:41am

ZrO-1,

I use it in a custom module in the hook nodeapi. i've attached the sample usage file to the original post.

rgd.

yashesh

help...

Posted by titogo on December 19, 2007 at 6:50pm

I've installed the module but i dont know how can i configure it...

I have to edit the .module file with my preferences?

Thnks

unique_field module

Posted by arithmetric on February 18, 2008 at 8:51pm

Hi yashesh,

Thanks for sharing your approach.

I've released a module called unique_field, which provides an interface for selecting the fields from a content type to require to have unique values. The module is available at:

http://drupal.org/project/unique_field

I'd appreciate any comments and suggestions.

Module unique_field check

Posted by ipto on July 21, 2008 at 9:33pm

Module unique_field check only first value in multiple value types, even if values in nodes have one type

no longer true

Posted by bwinett on May 20, 2011 at 8:13pm

Although this thread is very old, thought I'd add that this is no longer true. Given a CCK field that allows multiple values, the module checks the entered value against all the values - of other nodes.

Note that last caveat. I found that if I have a multi-valued text field, I can enter the same value multiple times, and Unique fields won't complain (it will allow the node to be saved).