sugarcrm - prevent duplicate value using ajax in sugar crm

Question

i have create module using module builder , now i am having a field called as book Name now if i give same book name 2 time t is accepting .

i don't want to use and plug in for checking duplicate value because i want to learn the customization through code .

so i can call ajax and check in data base weather the same book name is exist in db or not but i don't know how controller works in sugar crm . and how to call ajax in sugar crm .

can any one guide me , your help is much appreciated .

Answer 1

If you really want to accomplish this using ajax then I'd recommend an entryPoint as the way to go. This customization will require a couple of simple things. First you'll write a little bit of javascript to perform the actual ajax call. That ajax call will post to the entryPoint you write. The entryPoint will run the query for you and return a response to you in the edit view. So lets get started by writing the entryPoint first.

First, open the file custom/include/MVC/Controller/entry_point_registry.php. If the folder structure and file do not exist yet, go ahead and create them.

Add the following code to the entry_point_registry.php file:

$entry_point_registry['test'] = array('file' => 'custom/test.php', 'auth' => true);

Some quick explanation about that line:

• The index value of test can be changed to whatever you like. Perhaps 'unique_book_value' makes more sense in your case. You'll see how this value is used in a minute.
• The file value in the array points to where you're gonna put your actual code. You should also give this a more meaningful name. It does NOT need to match the array key mentioned above.
• The 'auth' => true part determines whether or not the browser needs to have an active logged in session with SugarCRM or not. In this case (and almost all) I'd suggest keeping this to true.

Now lets look at the code that will go in custom/test.php (or in your case unique_book_name.php):

/* disclaimer: we are not gonna get all crazy with using PDO and parameterized queries at this point,
               but be aware that there is potential for sql injection here. The auth => true will help
               mitigate that somewhat, but you're never supposed to trust any input, blah blah blah. */

global $db; // load the global sugarcrm database object for your query

$book_name = urldecode($_REQUEST['book_name']); // we are gonna start with $_REQUEST to make this easier to test, but consider changing to $_POST when confirmed working as expected
$book_id   = urldecode($_REQUEST['book_id']);   // need to make sure this still works as expected when editing an existing record

// the $db->quote is an alias for mysql_real_escape_string() It still does not protect you completely from sql injection, but is better than not using it...
$sql = "SELECT id FROM book_module_table_name WHERE deleted = 0 AND name = '".$db->quote($book_name)."' AND id <> '".$db->quote($book_id)."'";

$res = $db->query($sql);

if ($db->getRowCount($res) > 0) {
    echo 'exists';
}
else {
    echo 'unique';
}

A note about using direct database queries: There are api methods you can use to accomplish this. (hint: $bean->retrieve_by_string_fields() - check out this article if you wanna go that route: http://developer.sugarcrm.com/2012/03/23/howto-using-the-bean-instead-of-sql-all-the-time/) However, I find the api to be rather slow and ajax should be as fast as possible. If a client asked me to provide this functionality there's a 99% chance I'd use a direct db query. Might use PDO and parameterized query if I'm feeling fancy that day, but it's your call.

Using the above code you should be able to navigate to https://crm.yourdomain.com/index.php?entryPoint=test and run the code we just wrote.

However at this point all you're gonna get is a white screen. If you modify the url to include the entryPoint part and it loads your home page or does NOT go to a white screen there are 3 potential causes:

1. You put something different for $entry_point_registry['test']. If so change the url to read index.php?entryPoint=whatever_you_put_as_the_array_key
2. You have sugar in a folder or something on your domain so instead of crm.yourdomain.com it is located somewhere ugly and stupid like yourdomain.com/sugarcrm/ if this is the case just make sure that your are modifying the url such that the actual domain portion is preserved. Okay I'll spell it out for you... https://yourdomain.com/sugarcrm/index.php?entryPoint=test
3. This is more rare, but for some reason that I cannot figure out apache sometimes needs to be reloaded when adding a new entrypoint. If you have shell access a quick /etc/init.d/apache2 reload should do the trick. If you don't have shell access you may need to open a ticket with your hosting provider (or get a fricking vps where you have some control!!!, c'mon man!)

Still not working? Did you notice the "s" in https? Try http instead and buy a fricking $9 ssl cert, geez man!

Okay moving on. Let's test out the entryPoint a bit. Add a record to the book module. Let's add the book "War of Art" (no, not Art of War, although you should give that a read too).

Now in the url add this: index.php?entryPoint=test&book_name=Art%20of%20War

Oh gawd that url encoding is hideous right! Don't worry about it.

You should hopefully get an ugly white screen with the text "exists". If you do let's make sure it also works the other way. Add a 2 to the book name in the url and hopefully it will now say "unique".

Quick note: if you're using Sugar you're probably also using mysql which is case insensitive when searching on strings. If you really need case sensitivity check out this SO article: How can I make SQL case sensitive string comparison on MySQL?

Okay so now we have our entryPoint working and we can move on to the fun part of making everything all ajaxical. There are a couple ways to go about this, but rather than going the most basic route I'm gonna show you what I've found to be the most reliable route.

You probably will need to create the following file: custom/modules/CUSTOM_BOOK_MODULE/views/view.edit.php (I hope by now I don't need to point out changing that path to use your module name...

Assuming this file did not exist and we are starting from scratch here is what it will need to look like:

if(!defined('sugarEntry') || !sugarEntry) die('Not A Valid Entry Point');

class CUSTOM_BOOK_MODULEViewEdit extends ViewEdit
{
    public function display()
    {
        // make sure it works in the subpanel too
        $this->useForSubpanel = true;

        // make the name value available in the tpl file
        $this->ss->assign('name_value', $this->bean->name);

        // load the parsed contents of the tpl into this var
        $name_input_code = $this->ss->fetch('custom/modules/CUSTOM_BOOK_MODULE/tpls/unique_book_checker.tpl.js');

        // pass the parsed contents down into the editviewdefs
        $this->ss->assign('custom_name_code', $name_input_code);

        // definitely need to call the parent method
        parent::display();
    }
}

Things are looking good. Now we gotta write the code in this file: custom/modules/CUSTOM_BOOK_MODULE/tpls/unique_book_checker.tpl.js

First a couple of assumptions:

1. We're going to expect that this is Sugar 6.5+ and jquery is already available. If you're on an earlier version you'll need to manually include jquery.

2. We're going to put the event listener on the name field. If the book name value that you want to check is actually a different field name then simply adjust that in the javascript below.

Here is the code for custom/modules/CUSTOM_BOOK_MODULE/unique_book_checker.tpl.js:

<input type="text" name="name" id="name" maxlength="255" value="{$name_value}" />
<span id="book_unique_result"></span>

{literal}
<script type="text/javascript">

$(document).ready(function() {

    $('#name').blur(function(){

        $('#book_unique_result').html('<strong> checking name...</strong>');

        $.post('index.php?entryPoint=test', {book_name: $('#name').val(), book_id: $('[name="record"]').val()}, function(data){

            if (data == 'exists') {
                removeFromValidate('EditView', 'name');
                addToValidate('EditView', 'name', 'float', true, 'Book Name Must be Unique.');

                $('#book_unique_result').html('<strong style="color:red;"> &#x2717;</strong>');
            }
            else if (data == 'unique') {
                removeFromValidate('EditView', 'name');
                addToValidate('EditView', 'name', '', true, 'Name Required');

                $('#book_unique_result').html('<strong style="color:green;"> &#x2713;</strong>');
            }
            else {
                // uh oh! maybe you have php display errors on?
            }

        });
    });
});
</script>
{/literal}

Another Note: When the code detects that the name already exists we get a little hacky and use Sugar's built in validation stuff to prevent the record from saving. Basically, we are saying that if the name already exists then the name value MUST be a float. I figured this is pretty unlikely and will do the trick. However if you have a book named 3.14 or something like that and you try to create a duplicate this code will NOT prevent the save. It will tell you that a duplicate was found, but it will not prevent the save.

Phew! Okay last two steps and they are easy. First, open the file: custom/modules/CUSTOM_BOOK_MODULE/metadata/editviewdefs.php. Next, find the section that provides the metadata for the name field and add this customCode attribute so that it looks like this:

array (
'name' => 'name',
'customCode' => '{$custom_name_code}',
),

Finally, you'll need to do a quick repair and rebuild for the metadata changes to take effect. Go to Admin > Repair > Quick Repair & Rebuild.

Boom! You should be good to go!