When using a Zend_Form, the only way to validate that an input is not left blank is to do
$element->setRequired(true);
If this is not set and the element is blank, it appears to me that validation is not run on the element.
If I do use setRequired(), the element is automatically given the standard NotEmpty validator. The thing is that the error message with this validator sucks, ‘Value is empty, but a non-empty value is required’. I want to change this message. At the moment I have done this by changing the Zend_Validate_NotEmpty class, but this is a bit hacky.
I would ideally like to be able to use my own class (derived from Zend_Validate_NotEmpty) to perform the not empty check.
I did it this way (ZF 1.5):
so, the addValidator() is the interesting part. The Message is set in an ‘Errormessage File’ (to bundle all custom messages in one file):
hope this helps…