Question

So I’m using jQuery and the validation plugin to validate form input on the client side. Of course I need to revalidate it on the server. I want to statically put the errors tags into the HTML for all form items. So even if there’s no error they’ll still be there. I want to do this so that the jQuery validation and PHP can both output to the same tags.

Now my question is this – How can I force the validation plugin to output to the existing tag? Is it possible and if not, how could I accomplish what I want? Surely this is a pretty common thing to want to do, and yet I haven’t been able to find any answers (maybe I just don’t know what to search for).

Here’s a little example of what I’m after.

<li>
   <label for="description" class='form_desc'>Description</label>
   <textarea name="description" id='description' class='required' title="A description of your listing." rows="15" ></textarea>
   <label for='description' class='error'>This is the tag I want to use.</label>
</li>

Answer 1

If I understand your question correctly you can use the jquery validation. It’s easier to use. Take a look at the below code.

        jQuery("#description").validate({
            expression: "if(VAL) return true; else return false;",
            message: "<?php echo JText::_('DESC_ERROR_BLANK'); ?>"
        });

At the server level(PHP) you can define the DESC_ERROR_BLANK like below.

define("DESC_ERROR_BLANK", "This is the tag I want to use");

At the server level

If($_POST['description'] == '')
{
 //php validation goes here
 //use the same 'DESC_ERROR_BLANK' to output the error here
}

Hope this will solve your problem. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks.