cakephp: [3.1] FormHelper & Nesting Validators: No error messages in the form

When using nested validators the error messages for the nested fields do exist, but they are not shown in the form. I think the form helper Display and Checking Errors can’t handle the “nested” error messages and field names like Model.nested.array.fieldname.

Example: I’m trying to apply validation rules for translation input fields. Let’s assume the regular title field has minLength of 5 and the translated field should have a minLength of 10.

// The nested validation is set up in the table class as described in the book.
// http://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/core-libraries/validation.html#nesting-validators

// Example input data array ($this->request->data)
[
  'title' => 'abc',
  '_translations' => [
    'fr' => [
      'title' => 'abc'
    ],
  ]
]

// Then in controller
...
$item = $this->Items->patchEntity($item, $this->request->data);
debug($item);
...

// The validation is working, errors are available in the debug result:
object(App\Model\Entity\Item) {
    '[new]' => true,
    '[accessible]' => [
        '*' => true
    ],
    '[dirty]' => [],
    '[original]' => [],
    '[virtual]' => [],
    '[errors]' => [
        'title' => [
            'minLength' => 'minLengh is set to 5'
        ],
        '_translations' => [
            'fr' => [
                'title' => [
                    'minLength' => 'minLengh is set to 10.'
                ]
            ]
        ],
    ],
    '[repository]' => 'Items'
}

// But in the form (view) you can't show the error:
echo $this->Form->error('items._translations.fr.title');
// Result: Nothing :(
// Also the input field does not get marked with the css error class...

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 9 years ago
Comments: 21 (15 by maintainers)

Commits related to this issue

Update FormContext::errors() to handle nested errors. Adjust error collection to properly handle nested validators. Partially addresses #7532. — committed to beporter/cakephp by beporter 9 years ago
Update FormContext::errors() to handle nested errors. Adjust error collection to properly handle nested validators. Partially addresses #7532. — committed to beporter/cakephp by beporter 9 years ago

Most upvoted comments

Here’s my dirty, but simple solution for the problem - we’re using JsonType fields a lot and by overriding FormHelper’s error() method like this we get error messages for nested validations:

public function error($field, $text = null, array $options = [])
{
    $parts = explode('.', $field);
    if (count($parts) > 1 && is_array($this->context()->entity()->get($parts[0]))) {
        $errors = $this->context()->entity()->errors();
        if (Hash::check($errors, $field)) {
            $error = Hash::extract($errors, $field);
            if (is_array($error)) {
                if (count($error) > 1) {
                    $errorText = [];
                    foreach ($error as $err) {
                        $errorText[] = $this->formatTemplate('errorItem', ['text' => $err]);
                    }
                    $error = $this->formatTemplate('errorList', [
                        'content' => implode('', $errorText)
                    ]);
                } else {
                    $error = array_pop($error);
                }
            }
            return $this->formatTemplate('error', ['content' => $error]);
        }
    }
    return parent::error($field, $text, $options);
}

robertscherer on Jun 28, 2016

@markstory can we re-open this and try @robertscherer solution? We have exactly the same use case here that we need to validate nested JSON data. Looks like his solution works for me.

burzum on Nov 28, 2017

As of 3.3.0 (#9225) TranslateBehavior can have a validator option set. This validator will be used to validate translated records, and the errors are propagated up to the root entity so articles._translations.fr.title will work as you’d expect.

markstory on Aug 11, 2016

@beporter Awesome. I started off with the EntityContext and it got out of hand really quickly.

markstory on Dec 1, 2015