Customizing Comment Model
=========================

For the `Comment` model, we mainly need to customize the `rules()` and `attributeLabels()` methods. The `attributeLabels()` method returns a mapping between attribute names and attribute labels. We do not need to touch `relations()` since the code generated by the `Gii` tool is good enough.


Customizing `rules()` Method
----------------------------

We first customize the validation rules generated by the `Gii` tool. The following rules are used for comments:

~~~
[php]
public function rules()
{
	return array(
		array('content, author, email', 'required'),
		array('author, email, url', 'length', 'max'=>128),
		array('email','email'),
		array('url','url'),
	);
}
~~~

In the above, we specify that the `author`, `email` and `content` attributes are required; the length of `author`, `email` and `url` cannot exceed 128; the `email` attribute must be a valid email address; and the `url` attribute must be a valid URL.


Customizing `attributeLabels()` Method
--------------------------------------

We then customize the `attributeLabels()` method to declare the label display for each model attribute. This method returns an array consisting of name-label pairs. When we call [CHtml::activeLabel()] to display an attribute label.

~~~
[php]
public function attributeLabels()
{
	return array(
		'id' => 'Id',
		'content' => 'Comment',
		'status' => 'Status',
		'create_time' => 'Create Time',
		'author' => 'Name',
		'email' => 'Email',
		'url' => 'Website',
		'post_id' => 'Post',
	);
}
~~~

> Tip: If the label for an attribute is not declared in `attributeLabels()`, an algorithm will be used to generate an appropriate label. For example, a label `Create Time` will be generated for attributes `create_time` or `createTime`.


Customizing Saving Process
--------------------------

Because we want to record the creation time of a comment, we override the `beforeSave()` method of `Comment` like we do for the `Post` model:

~~~
[php]
protected function beforeSave()
{
	if(parent::beforeSave())
	{
		if($this->isNewRecord)
			$this->create_time=time();
		return true;
	}
	else
		return false;
}
~~~


<div class="revision">$Id$</div>