How can I customise Zend_Form regex error messages? - php

Question

I have the following code:
$postcode = $form->createElement('text', 'postcode');
$postcode->setLabel('Post code:');
$postcode->addValidator('regex', false,
array('/^[a-z]{1,3}[0-9]{1,3} ?[0-9]{1,3}[a-z]{1,3}$/i'));
$postcode->addFilters(array('StringToUpper'));
$postcode->setRequired(true);
It creates an input field in a form and sets a regex validation rule and works just fine.
The problem is that the error message it displays when a user enters an invalid postcode is this:
'POSTCODE' does not match against pattern
'/^[a-z]{1,3}[0-9]{1,3} ?[0-9]{1,3}[a-z]{1,3}$/i'
(where input was POSTCODE)
How can I change this message to be a little more friendly?

Answer 1

I think to remember, you can set the error message in the Validator:
$postcode = $form->createElement('text', 'postcode');
$postcode->setLabel('Post code:');
$postcode->addValidator('regex', false, array(
'pattern' => '/^[a-z]{1,3}[0-9]{1,3} ?[0-9]{1,3}[a-z]{1,3}$/i')
'messages' => array(
'regexInvalid' => "Invalid type given, value should be string, integer or float",
'regexNotMatch' => "'%value%' does not match against pattern '%pattern%'",
'regexErrorous' => "There was an internal error while using the pattern '%pattern%'"
)
);
$postcode->addFilters(array('StringToUpper'));
$postcode->setRequired(true);
If that doesn't work, try
setErrorMessages(array $messages): add multiple error messages to display on form validation errors, overwriting all previously set error messages.

Answer 2

If you define your validator as external variable use setMessage():
$validator = new Zend_Validate_Alnum();
$validator->setMessage('My custom error message for given validation rule',
Zend_Validate_Alnum::INVALID);
$formElement->addValidator($validator);
As you see in example above validator for form doesn't differ from any other kind of Zend_Validate_* instances.
Setting up validation messages involves looking into API Docs and finding out message constant for a given validation error (as I did in case of Zend_Validate_Alnum::INVALID). Of course if your IDE provides good context auto-completion just typing the validator class can be enough - as message constants are really self-explanatory in most cases.
Another way would be to use Zend_Form's magic methods, and simply passing 'messages' key, as a parameter to your validator:
$formElement->addValidator(array(
'alnum', false, array('messages' => array(
Zend_Validate_Alnum::INVALID => 'my message'
))
));
This would internally trigger the setMessages() method defined in Zend_Validate_Abstract, and in essence just a short-cut/time-saver defined for Zend_Form's.
NB: There's a dedicated section in ZF Manual regarding validation messages.

Answer 3

You could use the original Zend postcode validator
$user->addElement('text', 'postcode', array('label' => 'Postcode *',
'required' => true,
'class' => 'postcode_anywhere',
"validators" => array(
array("NotEmpty", false, array("messages" => array("isEmpty" => "Required *"),)),
array('PostCode', false, array('locale' => 'en_GB')
)
),
'filters' => array(array('StringToUpper')),
'class' => 'text'
)
);