CakePHP 2.0 $this->Form->input()

Question

This is my add.tcp ...

<?php

echo $this->Form->create('Group');
echo $this->Form->input('group_id', array('label' => 'ID'));
echo $this->Form->input('group_desc', array('label' => 'Group Description'));
echo $this->Form->end('Save');

?>

Table name: groups Table fields: group_id, group_desc PK: group_id

This is my controller ...

class GroupsController extends AppController {
  public $helper = array('Html', 'Form', 'Session');
  public $components = array('Session');

  public function add() {
    if ($this->request->is('post')) {
      if ($this->Group->save($this->request->data)) {
        $this->session.setFlash('');
        $this->redirect(array('action' => 'index'));
      }
    }
  }  
}

When I display this view on the browser, there was nothing for the field group_id but there was for the group_desc, the HTML source for the look like this ...

<form action="/cakephp/index.php/groups/add" id="GroupAddForm" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8" name="GroupAddForm">
    <div style="display:none;">
        <input type="hidden" name="_method" value="POST">
    </div><input type="hidden" name="data[Group][group_id]" id="GroupGroupId">
    <div class="input text">
        <label for="GroupGroupDesc">Group Description</label><input name="data[Group][group_desc]" maxlength="15" type="text" id="GroupGroupDesc">
    </div>
    <div class="submit">
        <input type="submit" value="บันทึก">
    </div>
</form>

Why it was hidden?

Answer 1

CakePHP automagically determines that you do not want a user to manually enter an ID, as such hides it for you.

If you would like to force ID field to be shown, set the type to text:

echo $this->Form->input('group_id', array('type' => 'text', 'label' => 'ID'));

Answer 2

Because primary key inputs are hidden by default. CakePHP creates the primary key for you on add as auto increment INT or uuid CHAR Manually creating your primary keys is not recommended.

you can change the hidden type to text:

echo $this->Form->input('group_id', array('label' => 'ID', 'type' => 'text'));