Checking for Uniqueness

• Introduction
• The Example Form
• Add Uniqueness Check
• Checking for Uniqueness on Multiple Fields
• The Full Form

A common problem is that you need to check an incoming form submission to ensure the data being added to the database hasn't already been added. For example, maybe you have a registration form and you want to prevent duplicate entries from the same email address. Or maybe you want to check to see if someone with the same name hasn't already submitted the form. Users are notoriously good at finding innovative ways to mess up your data, so we need to stay on our toes!

This tutorial explains how to use the ft_api_check_submission_is_unique API function to ensure that an incoming form submission contains unique data. For the sake of the example, we'll be checking for the uniqueness of an email field, but it can be used for any other field (or fields) in your form - the function lets you determine "uniqueness" through a combination of fields, like username AND password.

Requirements

To follow this tutorial, you need the following:

1. You must have already added your form to Form Tools so that the data is currently being stored. We're going to retro-actively add the uniqueness check.
2. Your form MUST be an API form. For more information on API vs. POST forms, give this documentation page a read over.