Forms and Form Classes

Records are stored in the Intrahealth Informatics Core Engine (I2CE) in forms, which consist of collection fields. You can think of a form as table in a database and a field as a column of that table.

The logic of a form is handled by a Form Class which extends I2CE_Form. The logic of a field is handled by a class extending I2CE_FormField.

Referencing in Templates

The templating system allows easy reference to data stored in a form in an html template. For example to reference a person's firstname you can use:

<p  id='my_person'>You are looking at <span type='form' name='person:firstname'/> <span type='form' name='person:surname'/>!</p>

Would be turned into

<p id='my_person'>You are looking at Joe Smith!</p>

if there was a 'person' form set at or above the node with id 'my_person'. The html is modified by the templating system. In version 3.1, this is done by the 'processForms()' method of the forms module class, I2CE_Module_Forms, by hooking into the hook 'process_templatedata_FORM' defined in I2CE_Module_TemplateData.

It is the responsibility of the page to make sure the appropriate form is assigned to the appropriate node in the template.

Forms and Their Classes

A form $form is linked to a form classes by specifying the data at /modules/forms/forms/$form/class to be the name of the form class. For example:

I2CE::getConfig()->modules->forms->person->class = 'I2CE_ManagePerson';

The classes may or may not exist as files. If there is logic that a form needs to perform, for instance on its validate() and save() methods it will exist. Otherwise, they exist virtually. Starting in version 3.2 such a virtual class is generated 'on-the-fly' by making use of the __autoload() method.

Fields and Their Clases

All fields of a form have a name and a type. The name of the fields is how the field is referenced by the form as a public variable by using the __get() and __set() methods. For example:

if ($person instanceof I2CE_Person)  {
 echo "$person->firstname . "\n";
}

The types effect how the data is stored in the database and how the data is displayed and entered in the system. The following are a list of common types:

• BOOL A boolean True/False value
• CURRENCY A currency value
• DATE_HMS A hour, minute, second time
• DATE_MD A month and date
• DATE_TIME A time
• DATE_Y A year
• DATE_YMD A year, month and date
• INT An integer value
• INT_LIST A list of integers
• INT_GENEREATE An integer which automatically increments
• STRING_LINE A line of text
• STRING_MLINE Several lines of text
• STRING_PASS A password
• STRING_TEXT A lot of text
• YESNO A Yes/No value

A $type is handled by the class I2CE_FormField_$type