CakePHP 2.0 Determine which submit button has been clicked

Question

In CakePHP 1.3 you can create a form with multiple submit buttons:

echo $this->Form->submit(\'Submit 1\', array(\'name\'=>\'submit\');
echo $this->Fo         


        

Answer 1

Generally it is a bad practise to use the same name for both submit buttons. There should be a "submit" key in the $_POST and $this->request->data

I tested this in CakePHP 2.1.1 as shown below:

The view code:

Form->create('Message', array('action'=>'test')); 
//  Extra test input field
echo $this->Form->input('test');
?>


Form->submit('Yes', array('div'=>false, 'name'=>'submit')); 
echo $this->Form->submit('No', array('div'=>false, 'name'=>'submit')); 
?>

Form->end()?>

The in the controller in $this->request->data:

array(
    'submit' => 'Yes',
    'Message' => array(
        'test' => 'TestFieldTest'
    )
)

And in $_POST:

array(
    '_method' => 'POST',
    'data' => array(
        'Message' => array(
            'test' => 'TestFieldTest'
        )
    ),
    'submit' => 'Yes'
)

You can also give the two submits different names:

echo $this->Form->submit('Yes', array('div'=>false, 'name'=>'submitY')); 
echo $this->Form->submit('No', array('div'=>false, 'name'=>'submitN')); 

This way you can differ them in the $_POST or $this->request->data, because the keys will be the submits' names:

array(
    'submitY' => 'Yes',
    'Message' => array(
        'test' => 'foo'
    )
)

array(
    '_method' => 'POST',
    'data' => array(
        'Message' => array(
            'test' => 'Bar'
        )
    ),
    'submitY' => 'Yes'
)

Then to determine which button is pressed you can use a simple isset($_POST['']) or over $this->request->data ?