Question

I’ve created a bunch of errors in a file under APPPATH/messages/validate.php with a bunch of common messages such as…

return array(
    'not_empty'    => ':field must not be empty.',
    'matches'      => ':field must be the same as :param1',
    'regex'        => ':field does not match the required format',
    'exact_length' => ':field must be exactly :param1 characters long',
    'min_length'   => ':field must be at least :param1 characters long',
    'max_length'   => ':field must be less than :param1 characters long',
    'in_array'     => ':field must be one of the available options',
    'digit'        => ':field must be a digit',
    'email'        => 'You must enter a valid email.',
    'name'         => 'You must enter your name.',
    'enquiry'      => 'You must enter your enquiry.',
    'captcha' => array (
        'Captcha::valid' => 'The characters you entered did not match the image. Please try again.',
        'not_empty' => 'You must enter the characters from the image.'
    ) 
);

This works great when I get errors like $errors = $post->errors('validate').

Is there a way to use these errors as base errors, and if I have a separate form which needs more, I can use a separate file with only the differences in it, for example it may look like

return array(
    'permissions'    => 'Please agree to the permissions',
);

So obviously, any email error message will come from validate.php (inherited), but any permissions error will come from the new file with the error definition for permissions.

I named the file validate.php because the inherit behaviour seems to work with the system folder and that is what it is called under SYSPATH/messages/validate.php (see it on GitHub).

Can my error messages inherit from a base file, or should I just copy all the error messages per form?

Answer 1

Inheritance works automatically, follow this pattern:

1. Search for a field+error specific message in the given file
2. Search for a field+default message in the given file
3. Search for a generic message in the given file
4. Search for a generic message in validate file

So, if you overload the validate file and change the default messages, then inheritance will work as expected.