Custom Validator Issue in Zend Framework

Question

I have form called LoginForm, which extends the RecipeForm which in turn extends Zend_Form. The RecipeFrom only returns my decorators.

When the form is submitted, I get the following error, 'Message: Method addValidator does not exist'.

class Recipe_Form_LoginForm extends Recipe_Form_RecipeForm {
    public function init()
    {
        parent::init();
        $this->setName('loginform')
             ->setAction('/login');


        //  Add Email Element
        $email = $this->addElement('text', 'email', array(
            'label' => 'Email Addresses',
            'required'=> true,
            'size'=>12,
            'filters'=>array('StringTrim'),
            'decorators' => $this->getElementDecorator('email'),

        ));
       $email->addValidator(new Recipe_Validate_EmailAddress(), true, array(
           'messages' => array(
               Recipe_Validate_EmailAddress::INVALID => 
               'Please enter email in correct format',
               Recipe_Validate_EmailAddress::EMAILISEMPTY =>
               'Please enter email address'
       )));
}

class Recipe_Validate_EmailAddress extends Zend_Validate_Abstract
{
    const INVALID           =   'notvalid';
    const EMAILISEMPTY      =   'isempty';

     protected $_messageTemplates = array(
             self::INVALID => "Email is in invalid format",
             self::EMAILISEMPTY => "You have to fill email field"
        );

    public function isValid($value){
        $response = parent::isValid($value);
        if(!$response){
            $this->_message = array(self::INVALID => "Please enter a valid email address");
        }
        return $response;
    }
}
?>

Answer 1

When you call $this->addElement() from within a Zend_Form object, it returns the form object itself, rather than the element you just created.

You can make one of the following changes:

$this->addElement('text', 'email', ...);
$email = $this->getElement('email');
$email->addValidator(...);

// or

$email = new Zend_Form_Element_Text('email');
$email->addValidator(...)
      ->setLabel(...)
      ->setRequired(...);
$this->addElement($email);

To set your error message, I think you should do this instead of setting $this->_message.

$this->_error(self::INVALID);

Since it looks like your class is only extending Zend's email validator to override the message, you can override Zend's messages like this and not need to extend the class. This is taken from a validator in one of my projects, so ignore the extra stuff and just pay attention to the messages for the EmailAddress validator.

$this->addElement('text', 'email', array(
        'label' => 'Email Address:',
        'required' => false,
        'filters' => array('StringTrim', 'StringToLower'),
        'validators' => array(
            array('EmailAddress', true, array(
                'messages' => array(
                    Zend_Validate_EmailAddress::INVALID_FORMAT =>
                    "'%value%' is not a valid email address. Example: you@yourdomain.com",
                    Zend_Validate_EmailAddress::INVALID_HOSTNAME =>
                    "'%hostname%' is not a valid hostname for email address '%value%'"
                )
            )),
            array('Db_RecordExists', true, array(
                'table' => 'accounts', 'field' => 'email',
                'messages' => array(
                    Zend_Validate_Db_RecordExists::ERROR_NO_RECORD_FOUND =>
                    "No account with that email address was found"
                )
            ))
        ),
        'decorators' => $this->elementDecorators
    ));