How to display error message properly from check_required_fields function? - php

Question

Hi i'd like some help please. i'm having a function for validating required fields of forms, in which i pass the req. fields in an array, so if is empty e.g first_name returns an error message: "The first_name is empty." . The problem is that i would like to make the name of the field in the message to look more "friendly" to the user, no camelCases or '_'. How can i achieve this?
p.s. here's my code:
$required_fields = array('first_name', 'last_name', 'email', 'profileInfo', 'message');
$errors = array_merge($errors, check_required_fields($required_fields));
Right now the output error message looks like :
"The first_name is required" or "The profileInfo is required".
The function is this:
function check_required_fields($required_fields) {
$field_errors = array();
foreach($_POST as $field=>$value){
if(empty($value) && in_array($field, $required_fields) === true){
$field_errors[] = "the " . $field . " is required.";
//break 1;
}
}
return $field_errors;
}

Answer 1

You could give each required field a label...
$required_fields = array(
'first_name' => 'First Name',
'last_name' => 'Last name',
'email' => 'Email Address',
'profileInfo' => 'Profile information',
'message' => 'Message'
);
$errors = array_merge($errors, check_required_fields($required_fields));
You will need to alter check_required_fields method to handle the $required_fields array correctly, like this:
function check_required_fields($required_fields)
{
$field_errors = array();
foreach ($_POST as $field => $value)
{
if (empty($value) && array_key_exists($field, $required_fields) === true)
{
$field_errors[] = "the " . $required_fields[$field] . " is required.";
//break 1;
}
}
return $field_errors;
}
Edit: I have just noticed that your loop on $_POST will only work as expected if the fields are set. Try the following:
function check_required_fields($required_fields)
{
$field_errors = array();
foreach ($required_fields as $field => $label)
{
$value = $_POST[$field];
if (empty($value))
{
$field_errors[] = "the " . $label . " is required.";
//break 1;
}
}
return $field_errors;
}