Zend_Validate_Abstract custom validator not displaying correct error messages.

Question

I have two text fields in a form that I need to make sure neither have empty values nor contain the same string.

The custom validator that I wrote extends Zend_Validate_Abstract and works correctly in that it passes back the correct error messages. In this case either: isEmpty or isMatch.

However, the documentation says to use addErrorMessages to define the correct error messages to be displayed.

in this case, i have attached

->addErrorMessages(array("isEmpty"=>"foo", "isMatch"=>"bar"));

to the form field.

According to everything I've read, if I return "isEmpty" from isValid(), my error message should read "foo" and if i return "isMatch" then it should read "bar".

This is not the case I'm running into though. If I return false from is valid, no matter what i set $this->_error() to be, my error message displays "foo", or whatever I have at index[0] of the error messages array.

If I don't define errorMessages, then I just get the error code I passed back for the display and I get the proper one, depending on what I passed back.

How do I catch the error code and display the correct error message in my form?

The fix I have implemented, until I figure it out properly, is to pass back the full message as the errorcode from the custom validator. This will work in this instance, but the error message is specific to this page and doesn't really allow for re-use of code.

Things I have already tried: I have already tried validator chaining so that my custom validator only checks for matches:

->setRequired("true")  
->addValidator("NotEmpty")  
->addErrorMessage("URL May Not Be Empty")  
->addValidator([*customValidator]*)  
->addErrorMessage("X and Y urls may not be the same")  

But again, if either throws an error, the last error message to be set displays, regardless of what the error truly is.

I'm not entirely sure where to go from here.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I think you misinterpreted the manual. It says

addErrorMessage($message): add an error message to display on form validation errors. You may call this more than once, and new messages are appended to the stack.

addErrorMessages(array $messages): add multiple error messages to display on form validation errors.

These functions add custom error messages to the whole form stack.

If you want to display validation error messages when the validation fails, you have to implement the message inside your validator.

ie.

const EMPTY = 'empty';

protected $_messageTemplates = array(
  self::EMPTY => "Value is required and can't be empty",
);

public function isValid($value)
{
  if(empty($value)) {
    $this->_error(self::EMPTY);
    return false;
  }

  return true;
}

This way, after the validation fails, you can get the error codes using $validator->getErrors() and the error messages using $validator->getMessages().

If you have the $_messageTemplates properly defined, Zend_Form automatically uses the error messages instead of error codes and prints them out.

Hope this helps.