Submit AngularJS form with CodeIgniter - json

Question

Let me preface this by saying I'm new to AngularJS & CodeIgniter.
Trying to create a single page app. In the center it displays news stories. On the side is a form to submit new stories. I'm to the point where the stories display fine from the DB. But when I try to create new stories from the form on the side, it enters 0 into the DB. I assume I have an issue with my function in the model. And it's probably as basic as not having the information encoded correctly to pass between MVC.
index.php
<div class="span2" ng-controller="NewStoryCtrl">
<h4>New Story</h4>
<form name="newStory">
<label for="title">Title: </label>
<input type="text" name ="title" ng-model="news.title" required>
<label for="text">Text: </label>
<textarea type="text" name="text" ng-model="news.text"required></textarea>
<button ng-click="createNews()">Submit</button>
</form>
controller.js
function NewStoryCtrl($scope, $http) {
$scope.news = {title:$scope.title, text:$scope.text};
$scope.createNews = function(){
$http.post('/ci/index.php/news/create/',$scope.news);
};}
news.php (controller)
public function create() {
$this->news_model->set_news();
}
news_model.php (model)
public function set_news() {
$this->load->helper('url');
$slug = url_title($this->input->post('title'), 'dash', TRUE);
$data = array(
'title' => $this->input->post('title'),
'slug' => $slug,
'time' => time(),
'text' => $this->input->post('text')
);
return $this->db->insert('news', $data);
}
The stuff in the model is leftover from my initial CI news tutorial. That's why I assume the error is here.
What's the best way to pass the information from the controllers.js to the model?

Answer 1

As expected, my issue was with not getting the right type of data. Controller was expecting a variable, but in Angular controller I was passing it as JSON. I hadn't ever gone through decoding.
news.php (controller)
public function create() {
$data = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://input'), TRUE);
$this->news_model->set_news($data);
}
And then in the model, I just needed to pass it as a parameter to set_news(). I ended up changing some variable names, just for personal clarification.
*news_model.php*
public function set_news($data) {
$this->load->helper('url');
$slug = url_title($data['title'], 'dash', TRUE);
$retval = array(
'title' => $data['title'],
'slug' => $slug,
'time' => time(),
'text' => $data['text']
);
return $this->db->insert('news', $retval);
}

Answer 2

I haven't used Angular.js, but your data format is probably correct. For example, Backbone sends a single $_POST variable called model with json encoded data, as I have used it.
It is imperative that you use Firebug, Webdev or other tools to see what is going on when you try to do AJAX work like this; otherwise you will go crazy . Look at the variable being sent to your backend - it is probably described, an encoded single var you will need to collect, json_decode, CLEAN & VALIDATE and then use.