I used to do the same thing - explicitly add the validator beforehand so it's
accessible for attaching a message later.
>I suppose another solution might be to create a Translator. Does a
>translator get called even for translations to English?
In the end though, I decided a Translator was simpler since it was
automatically called, and it reduced the amount of maintainable code for
forms substantially. The translator is, perhaps counter-intuitively,
agnostic as to the source language. You can use as easily for translating
keywords or English sentences, into other English sentences. All validators
have public constants standing in for message strings which make for
excellent translation terms if you take the PHP array approach.
By the way I agree - the default messages are horrendous and border on bad
English. If I were not English speaking I'd suspect they were
incomprehensible. There is a lot to be said for having defaults that are as
simple and plain spoken as possible using natural English.
Take Zend_Validate_Alpha. If an empty string is input you get the error
message:
'%value%' is an empty string
That's brilliant. The user now knows they input an empty string. We even
print the empty string, just to clarify that the space between the single
quotes is indeed....zero. When I saw this the first time I spent a few
mintues trying to figure out if the joke was on me ;). What we haven't
clarified is that it's not allowed to be an empty string. There's a subtle
difference - one is a statement of fact, the other is advising of a problem.
The single quotes may even be confusing by themselves.
I ended up going off topic on this one ;). Maybe I'll tackle the default
messages again as something for ZF 2.0 to consider.
Paddy
bfoust wrote:
>
> A validator's setMessage("...") may be used to change the error message
> when a validator fails. For example:
>
> $formElement->getValidator('StringLength')->setMessage("Your password
> must be at least 6 characters long.");
>
>
> However, the NotEmpty validator (created automatically when
> setRequired(true) has been called on an element) cannot have it's message
> changed in the same way. This is because it is added, not at the time of
> the setRequired(true) call, but only when validate() is called:
>
>
> First off, wouldn't it make more sense if the default error message was
> "This value may not be left blank." in the first place, rather than,
> "Value is empty, but a non-empty value is required"?
>
> But secondly, there should be a consistent method of changing any error
> message. The current implementation is inconsistent, because it prevents
> the specified API for changing a validator's message from functioning. And
> that is because the validator does not exist, until validate() is called
> on the element:
>
> ----- From Element.php ------
>
> public function isValid($value, $context = null)
> {
> $this->setValue($value);
> $value = $this->getValue();
>
> if (empty($value) && !$this->isRequired() &&
> $this->getAllowEmpty()) {
> return true;
> }
>
> if ($this->isRequired()
> && $this->autoInsertNotEmptyValidator()
> && !$this->getValidator('NotEmpty'))
> {
> $validators = $this->getValidators();
> $notEmpty = array('validator' => 'NotEmpty',
> 'breakChainOnFailure' => true);
> array_unshift($validators, $notEmpty);
> $this->setValidators($validators);
> }
> ----------------------------------
>
> One possible fix would be for the ZF team to create the NotEmpty
> validator within setRequired. That way, later calls to
> getValidator('NotEmpty') will succeed.
>
>
> I suppose another solution might be to create a Translator. Does a
> translator get called even for translations to English?
>
> When writing new code, the simplest fix while we await an update to ZF
> 1.5.1, is to still use setRequired(true), but explicitly create the
> NotEmpty validator beforehand:
>
> $password = $this->createElement('password', ...
> $password->addValidator('NotEmpty');
> $password->getValidator('NotEmpty')->setMessage("Please enter your
> password.");
>
> $password->addValidator('StringLength', true, array(6))
> ->setRequired(true)
> ->addFilter('StringTrim');
>
> $password->getValidator('StringLength')->setMessage("Your password must
> be at least 6 characters long.");
>
>
>
-----
Pádraic Brady
http://blog.astrumfutura.com
http://www.patternsforphp.com
OpenID Europe Foundation - Irish Representative
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