Question

I’m validating a text field in my form as follows:

 $name = new Zend_Form_Element_Text('name');

 $name->setLabel('First Name:')
      ->setRequired(true)
      ->addFilter(new Zend_Filter_StringTrim())
      ->addValidator('regex',true,array('/^[(a-zA-Z0-9)]+$/'))
      ->addErrorMessage('Please enter a valid first name');

What I’m trying to accomplish is – how can i display a meaningful error message?
Eg: If first name is ‘XYZ-‘, how can i display ‘- is not allowed in first name.’

Is there a way I can access what character the regex is failing for?
Would you recommend something else altogether?

I thought about writing a custom validator but the regex is pretty simple, so I don’t see the point.
I couldn’t find a decent documentation for the zend ‘regex’ validator anywhere.

If I don’t override the default error message, I simple get something like :
‘;;;hhbhbhb’ does not match against pattern ‘/^[(a-zA-Z0-9)]+$/’ – which I obviously don’t want to display to the user.

I’d appreciate your inputs.

Answer 1

How about telling the user in layman’s terms what your restrictions are? Like

Error: Only the letters A to Z and numbers are allowed.

(Which leads me to the question why first names can contain numbers…)