CodeIgniter 4 How To Submit Form Data by Ajax Request

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Inside this article we will see the concept i.e CodeIgniter 4 How To Submit Form Data by Ajax Request. Article contains the classified information about How to use Ajax requests in application to save form data to database.

CodeIgniter 4 is a open source PHP Framework. Nowadays, every application somewhere uses Ajax request either for any operations like Create, Read, Update & Delete in CodeIgniter 4.

Inside this tutorial we will create a form with few input fields and upload in codeIgniter 4 using Ajax request. This CodeIgniter 4 form data submit by ajax is a very interesting topic to implement. This article will help you to understand in a very easy way.

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Let’s get started.

CodeIgniter 4 Installation

To create a CodeIgniter 4 setup run this given command into your shell or terminal. Please make sure composer should be installed.

composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter codeigniter-4

Assuming you have successfully installed application into your local system.

Now, let’s configure database and application connectivity.

Environment (.env) Setup

When we install CodeIgniter 4, we will have env file at root. To use the environment variables means using variables at global scope we need to do env to .env

Either we can do via renaming file as simple as that. Also we can do by terminal command.

Open project in terminal

cp env .env

Above command will create a copy of env file to .env file. Now we are ready to use environment variables.

Enable Development Mode

CodeIgniter starts up in production mode by default. You need to make it in development mode to see any error if you are working with application.

Open .env file from root.

# CI_ENVIRONMENT = production

 // Do it to 
 
CI_ENVIRONMENT = development

Now application is in development mode.

Create Database

To create a database, either we can create via Manual tool of PhpMyadmin or by means of a mysql command.

We will use MySQL command to create database. Run this command into Sql tab of PhpMyAdmin.

CREATE DATABASE codeigniter4_app;

Successfully, we have created a database.

Create Database Table

Next, we need a table. That table will be responsible to store data.

Let’s create table with some columns.

CREATE TABLE `users` (
 `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
 `name` varchar(120) DEFAULT NULL,
 `email` varchar(120) DEFAULT NULL,
 `mobile` varchar(45) DEFAULT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

Successfully, we have created a table. Let’s connect with the application.

Database Connection

Open .env file from project root.

Search for DATABASE. You should see the connection environment variables into it. Put your updated details of database connection string values.

 
#--------------------------------------------------------------------
# DATABASE
#--------------------------------------------------------------------

database.default.hostname = localhost
database.default.database = codeigniter4_app
database.default.username = admin
database.default.password = admin
database.default.DBDriver = MySQLi
database.default.DBPrefix =
database.default.port = 3306
  

Now, database successfully connected with the application.

Add Routes

Open Routes.php from /app/Config folder. Add these routes into it.

//...

$routes->get("add-user", "UserController::addUser");
$routes->post("save-user", "UserController::saveUser"); 

//...

Let’s create Model.

Create Model

Open project into terminal and run this spark command to create model.

$ php spark make:model User --suffix

It will create UserModel.php inside /app/Models folder. Open that file and write this complete code into it.

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use CodeIgniter\Model;

class UserModel extends Model
{
	protected $DBGroup              = 'default';
	protected $table                = 'users';
	protected $primaryKey           = 'id';
	protected $useAutoIncrement     = true;
	protected $insertID             = 0;
	protected $returnType           = 'array';
	protected $useSoftDelete        = false;
	protected $protectFields        = true;
	protected $allowedFields        = [
		"name", 
		"email", 
		"mobile"
	];

	// Dates
	protected $useTimestamps        = false;
	protected $dateFormat           = 'datetime';
	protected $createdField         = 'created_at';
	protected $updatedField         = 'updated_at';
	protected $deletedField         = 'deleted_at';

	// Validation
	protected $validationRules      = [];
	protected $validationMessages   = [];
	protected $skipValidation       = false;
	protected $cleanValidationRules = true;

	// Callbacks
	protected $allowCallbacks       = true;
	protected $beforeInsert         = [];
	protected $afterInsert          = [];
	protected $beforeUpdate         = [];
	protected $afterUpdate          = [];
	protected $beforeFind           = [];
	protected $afterFind            = [];
	protected $beforeDelete         = [];
	protected $afterDelete          = [];
}

Create Controller

Open project into terminal and run this spark command to create controller.

$ php spark make:controller User --suffix

This command will create a file UserController.php inside /app/Controllers folder.

Open UserController.php and write this complete code into it.

<?php

namespace App\Controllers;

use App\Models\UserModel;

class UserController extends BaseController
{
	public function __construct()
	{
		helper(["url"]);
	}

	public function addUser()
	{
		// layout of add user form
		return view('add-user');
	}

	public function saveUser()
	{
		if ($this->request->getMethod() == "post") {

			$rules = [
				"name" => "required",
				"email" => "required|valid_email",
				"mobile" => "required"
			];

			if (!$this->validate($rules)) {

				$response = [
					'success' => false,
					'msg' => "There are some validation errors",
				];

				return $this->response->setJSON($response);
			} else {

				$userModel = new UserModel();

				$data = [
					"name" => $this->request->getVar("name"),
					"email" => $this->request->getVar("email"),
					"mobile" => $this->request->getVar("mobile"),
				];

				if ($userModel->insert($data)) {

					$response = [
						'success' => true,
						'msg' => "User created",
					];
				} else {
					$response = [
						'success' => true,
						'msg' => "Failed to create user",
					];
				}

				return $this->response->setJSON($response);
			}
		}
	}
}

Create Layout File

Create add-user.php inside /app/Views folder.

Open add-user.php and write this complete code into it.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
    <title>CodeIgniter 4 Form Data Submit by Ajax Method</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.4.1/css/bootstrap.min.css">
    <link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/sweetalert2@9.17.2/dist/sweetalert2.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <style>
        #frm-add-user label.error{
            color:red;
        }
    </style>
</head>

<body>

    <div class="container">
        <h4 style="text-align: center;">CodeIgniter 4 Form Data Submit by Ajax Method</h4>
        <div class="panel panel-primary">
            <div class="panel-heading">CodeIgniter 4 Form Data Submit by Ajax Method</div>
            <div class="panel-body">
                <form class="form-horizontal" action="javascript:void(0)" id="frm-add-user">
                    <div class="form-group">
                        <label class="control-label col-sm-2" for="name">Name:</label>
                        <div class="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="text" class="form-control" required id="name" placeholder="Enter name" name="name">
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div class="form-group">
                        <label class="control-label col-sm-2" for="email">Email:</label>
                        <div class="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="email" class="form-control" required id="email" placeholder="Enter email" name="email">
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div class="form-group">
                        <label class="control-label col-sm-2" for="mobile">Mobile:</label>
                        <div class="col-sm-10">
                            <input type="text" class="form-control" required id="mobile" placeholder="Enter mobile" name="mobile">
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div class="form-group">
                        <div class="col-sm-offset-2 col-sm-10">
                            <button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">Submit</button>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </form>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>

</body>

</html>

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<!-- Validation library file -->
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery-validate/1.19.2/jquery.validate.min.js"></script>
<!-- Sweetalert library file -->
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/sweetalert2@9.17.2/dist/sweetalert2.min.js"></script>

<script>
    $(function() {

        // Adding form validation
        $('#frm-add-user').validate();

        // Ajax form submission with image
        $('#frm-add-user').on('submit', function(e) {

            e.preventDefault();

            var formData = new FormData(this);
            // OR var formData = $(this).serialize();

            //We can add more values to form data
            //formData.append("key", "value");

            $.ajax({
                url: "<?= site_url('save-user') ?>",
                type: "POST",
                cache: false,
                data: formData,
                processData: false,
                contentType: false,
                dataType: "JSON",
                success: function(data) {
                    if (data.success == true) {
                        Swal.fire('Saved!', '', 'success')
                    }
                },
                error: function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) {
                    alert('Error at add data');
                }
            });
        });
    });
</script>
  • $(“#frm-add-user”).validate(); Using validate method validation library. As you can see inside view file code we have also added jquery.validate.min.js This is for client side form validation.
  • var formData = new FormData(this); Process all form data
  • var formData = $(this).serialize(); Store form data in serialized format.
  • $.ajax({}); Using ajax method of jQuery. This method have some properties as you can see we have used in the ajax request configuration.

Application Testing

Open project terminal and start development server via command:

php spark serve

URL – http://localhost:8080/add-user

Submit form without any data

Let’s fill some data and press submit button to initiate Ajax request and to save data into table.

Data saved in database table

We hope this article helped you to learn about CodeIgniter 4 How To Submit Form Data by Ajax Request in a very detailed way.

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5 thoughts on “CodeIgniter 4 How To Submit Form Data by Ajax Request”

  1. Sir g thanks a lot whenever i need something i found on your site only and the way of explaining is just amazing

  2. hello sir,i just want to request that please ad check email availability in your ajax form.i mean when user submit the button it should be check whether the given email is exist or not.if yes then it should be redirect to signup form.please it’s my humble request.

  3. Hi sir nice Ci4 tutorials how , suggests me a tutorial to make a news websites

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