Question

I’m developing a registration page using Zend Framework.

Phone, Mobile, ID Number are the fields I’d like to Validate. So far I have a validation only for Not Empty.

I couldn’t find the right solution so maybe you can help me out.

I want the phone and mobile fields to be only integers for ex. 12345667 and to have specific length, for ex. minimum 7 digits.

and the same thing goes with ID NUMBER field too.

This is how it looks right now:

$phone = new Zend_Form_Element_Text('phone');
$phone->setLabel('Phone')
      ->setAttribs(array('class' => 'inputtext'))       
      ->setOptions(array('size' => '50'))       
      ->setRequired(false)
      ->addFilter('StripTags')
      ->addFilter('StringTrim')
      ->addValidator('NotEmpty');   

Answer 1

Let’s try and give you some answer for your question.

If you don’t already realize it the validators in Zend_Form are the same validators used as standard validators in Zend_Validate, you usually just use the class name as a string instead of calling new. The same is true for filters and Zend_Filter

The closest standard validator available for a phone number would be the ‘Digits’ validator.

$phone = new Zend_Form_Element_Text('phone');
$phone->setLabel('Phone')
      ->setAttribs(array('class' => 'inputtext'))       
      ->setOptions(array('size' => '50'))       
      ->setRequired(false)
      ->addFilter('StripTags')
      ->addFilter('StringTrim')
      ->addValidator('NotEmpty');
//add digits validator , closest available to phone number in standard validators;
$phone->addValidator('Digits');

However you may find it more appropriate to construct your own validator by extending Zend_Validate_Abstract. A phone number validator might look like:

//validates US phone numbers using Zend_Validator_Regex
class MyNamespace_Validator_Form_Usphone extends Zend_Validate_Abstract
{
    const PHONE = 'phone';

    protected $_messageTemplates = array(
        self::PHONE => "'%value%' is not a valid U.S. phone number.
            Phone number must be entered in (xxx)xxx-xxxx or xxx-xxx-xxxx format."
    );

    public function isValid($value)
    {
        $this->_setValue($value);

        $isValid = true;
        $pattern = ('/^\(?([0-9]{3})\)?[-. ]?([0-9]{3})[-. ]?([0-9]{4})$/');
        if (!preg_match($pattern, $value)) {
            $this->_error(self::PHONE);
            $isValid = false;
        }
        return $isValid;
    }
}

and would be used in your form element:

$phone->addValidator(new MyNamespace_Validator_Form_Usphone());

One thing to keep in mind: If you set a form element as 'Required' using the 'NotEmpty' validator is redundant in most cases as setRequired() calls 'NotEmpty' internally.

Also remember that typically in Zend_Form filters are applied prior to validation.

Hope this helps.