How to compare new node title with already entered nodes in database

Question

I am using node gallery module.While creating an album, when the user enters duplicate name then error message is displayed as

This form requires that the fields Album name, Author are a unique combination. The specified values are already used.

I want to change this error message for duplicate album name. I have created a hook for this.

function hook_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {
  if ('NODE form id' == $form_id) {
   $form['#validate'][0] = 'my_custom_validate';
  }
}

function my_custom_validate(&$form, &$form_state){

  //Add code to check the title using db_query
  $title = $form_state['values']['title'];


     //$fetch data from node table w.r.t this $title 

  //if title exists
  form_set_error('title','custom message');
} 

Here how can I compare new node title with already entered nodes in database?

Answer 1

Use an EntityFieldQuery:

$query = new \EntityFieldQuery();
$query->entityCondition('entity_type', 'node')
  ->propertyCondition('type', 'some_type')
  ->propertyCondition('title', $title);

$result = $query->execute();
if (!empty($result['node'])) {
  // Node with provided title already exists.
}

Answer 2

You can use http://drupal.org/project/unique_field module. It performs additional validation when a node is created or updated by a user to require that a node's title or other specified fields are unique. Besides that

try this code may be helpful to you:

function my_custom_validate(&$form, &$form_state){

  //Add code to check the title using db_query
  $title = $form_state['values']['title'];

  $node_title = NULL;
  //$fetch data from node table w.r.t this $title
  $node_title = db_query('SELECT title FROM node WHERE title=:title',
        array(':title'=>$title))->fetchField();

  if (!empty($node_title )) {

    //if title exists
     form_set_error('title','custom message');
 }
}