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ClientSideValidations made easy for your Rails 7.2 and 8.x applications!

1. Follow the best practices for client side validations developed by Luke Wroblewski
2. Automatically extract and apply validation rules defined on the server to the client.
3. In the cases where a server-side validation rule would not work on the client (i.e. conditional callbacks like :if, :unless) then do not attempt client side validations. Fall back to the server side validation.
4. The client side validation error rendering should be indistinguishable from the server side validation error rendering.
5. Wide browser compliancy.
6. Work with any ActiveModel::Validations based model
7. Validate nested fields
8. Support custom validations
9. Client side validation callbacks
10. Plugin system to support additional FormBuilders, ORMs, etc...

Add the following line to your Gemfile:

gem 'client_side_validations'

Then run bundle install

Please run spring stop if you are using Spring

Next you need to run the generator:

rails g client_side_validations:install

This will install the initializer:

config/initializers/client_side_validations.rb

Instructions depend on your technology stack.

ClientSideValidations no longer depends on jQuery. If you previously installed jquery-rails, jquery_ujs, or custom jQuery startup code only for ClientSideValidations, you can remove that integration when upgrading to 24.x.

Add the following package:

yarn add @client-side-validations/client-side-validations

Then add the following line to your app/javascript/packs/application.js pack:

// If you are using `import` syntax
import '@client-side-validations/client-side-validations'

// If you are using `require` syntax
require('@client-side-validations/client-side-validations')

If you are using Turbo, use the import syntax and make sure that @client-side-validations/client-side-validations is imported after @hotwired/turbo-rails, so ClientSideValidations can properly detect window.Turbo and attach its event handlers.

If you are using Turbolinks 5.2, use the require syntax and make sure that @client-side-validations/client-side-validations is required after Turbolinks.start(), so ClientSideValidations can properly detect window.Turbolinks and attach its event handlers.

Add the following to your app/assets/javascripts/application.js file:

//= require rails.validations

If you are using Turbolinks, make sure that rails.validations is required after turbolinks, so ClientSideValidations can properly attach its event handlers.

If you need to copy the asset files from the gem into your project, run:

rails g client_side_validations:copy_assets

Note: If you run copy_assets, you will need to run it again each time you update this project.

If you are upgrading to 24.x, update your integration code to use the ClientSideValidations object directly.

The old jQuery plugin methods are removed. Use the DOM-first public API instead:

ClientSideValidations.enable(form)
ClientSideValidations.validate(form)
ClientSideValidations.isValid(form, validators)
ClientSideValidations.disable(form)
ClientSideValidations.reset(form)

These methods accept native DOM elements and DOM collections. They do not accept jQuery objects or CSS selector strings.

Custom validators, form builders, and callbacks now receive native DOM nodes instead of jQuery wrappers. Update any custom code to use DOM APIs such as .value, .form, .closest(), and querySelector(). Local validators are called as (element, options). Form callbacks receive (form, eventData), and element callbacks receive either (element, message, callback) or (element, callback) depending on the event.

All runtime-owned validation state attributes are now namespaced under csv. If you read or write these attributes in custom selectors, callbacks, or validators, update them to the scoped names:

data-changed => data-csv-changed
data-valid => data-csv-valid
data-validate => data-csv-validate
data-not-locally-unique => data-csv-not-locally-unique

The matching dataset properties are element.dataset.csvChanged, element.dataset.csvValid, element.dataset.csvValidate, and element.dataset.csvNotLocallyUnique. csvChanged is stored as the string values 'true' and 'false'.

jQuery namespaced events are removed. Events are now plain native DOM custom events. If your application listens to or unbinds events using jQuery-style namespacing, you must update those calls.

Before:

$(form).on('form:validate:before.ClientSideValidations', handler)
$(input).off('.ClientSideValidations')

After:

form.addEventListener('form:validate:before', handler)
// store and pass the handler reference to removeEventListener when unbinding

The full list of native events dispatched by ClientSideValidations: form:validate:before, form:validate:after, form:validate:pass, form:validate:fail, element:validate:before, element:validate:after, element:validate:pass, element:validate:fail.

If you are upgrading from a version older than 23.0.0, the data-csv-* renaming above is required for any custom code that still reads or writes the old attribute names. If you are already on 23.x, the new 24.x upgrade step is to update any local uniqueness integrations that still reference data-not-locally-unique or element.dataset.notLocallyUnique.

If your application vendors the compiled asset with rails g client_side_validations:copy_assets, run that generator again after upgrading so your copied asset matches the current jQuery-free bundle.

The initializer includes a commented out ActionView::Base.field_error_proc. Uncomment this to render your error messages inline with the input fields.

I recommend you to not use a solution similar to error_messages_for. Client Side Validations does not support this type of error rendering. If you want to maintain consistency between the client side rendered validation error messages and the server side rendered validation error messages please use what is in config/initializers/client_side_validations.rb

There is additional support for other ActiveModel based ORMs and other Rails FormBuilders. Please see the Plugin wiki page (feel free to add your own)

• SimpleForm
• Mongoid

In your FormBuilder you only need to enable validations:

<%= form_for @user, validate: true do |f| %>
  ...

That should be enough to get you going.

Starting from version 14.0, ClientSideValidations also supports form_with. The syntax is the same as form_for:

<%= form_with model: @user, validate: true do |f| %>
  ...

Note: ClientSideValidations requires id attributes on form fields to work, so it will force form_with to generate ids.

By default, ClientSideValidations will perform the validations in the same order specified in your models. In other words, if you want to validate the format of an email field before its presence, you can use the following:

class User < ApplicationRecord
  validates :email, format: { with: /\A[^@\s]+@[^@\s]+\z/ }, presence: true
end

By default conditional validators are not evaluated and passed to the client. We do this because the state model when the form is rendered is not necessarily the state of the model when the validations fire server-side. However, if you wish to override this behavior you can do so in the form. Given the following model:

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, presence: true, length: { maximum: 10 }, if: :can_validate?

  def can_validate?
    true
  end
end

You can force in the form:

<%= f.text_field :name, validate: true %>

Passing validate: true will force all the validators for that attribute. If there are conditionals they are evaluated with the state of the model when rendering the form. You can also force individual validators:

<%= f.text_field :name, validate: { presence: true } %>

In the above case only the presence validator will be passed to the client.

This is also the case with other supported conditional validations (such as Procs, Arrays or Strings).

NOTE: when :if conditional includes a symbol or a string with changed? in it or start with will_save_change_to, validator will forced automatically.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, presence: true, if: :name_changed?
end

The presence of name in the example above will be validated without explicit forcing.

This is done because it is always assumed the value will change on the form.

Conditionals defined with :unless key do not have this optimization.

If you wish to skip validations on a given attribute force it to false:

<%= f.text_field :name, validate: false %>

If you want to be more selective about the validation that is turned off you can simply do:

<%= f.text_field :name, validate: { presence: false } %>

You can even turn them off per fieldset:

<%= f.fields_for :profile, validate: false do |p| %>
  ...

Please note that pass callback will also be performed on fields that skip validations.

A rendered form with validations will always have a data-client-side-validations attribute.

The objects it contains will have different keys depending upon the FormBuilder being used. However, html_settings and validators will always be present.

This will always contain the type to the class of the FormBuilder that did the rendering. The type will be used by the JavaScript to determine how to add and remove the error messages. If you create a new FormBuilder, you will need to write your own handlers for adding and removing.

This object contains the validators for each of the inputs rendered on the FormBuilder. Each input is keyed to the name attribute and each containing validator could simply contain the error message itself or also specific options on how that validator should be run.

If you need to add more validators but don't want them rendered on the form immediately you can inject those validators with FormBuilder#validate:

<%= form_for @user, validate: true do |f| %>
  <p>
    <%= f.label :name %>
    <%= f.text_field :name %>
  </p>
  <%= f.validate :age, :bio %>
...

In the above example age and bio will not render as inputs on the form but their validators will be properly added to the validators object for use later. If you do intend to dynamically render these inputs later the name attributes on the inputs will have to match with the keys on the validators object, and the inputs will have to be enabled for client side validation.

You can add all attributes with validators for the given object by passing nothing:

<%= f.validate %>

You can also force validators similarly to the input syntax:

<%= f.validate :email, presence: false %>

Take care when using this method. The embedded validators are overwritten based upon the order they are rendered. So if you do something like:

<%= f.text_field :email, validate: { presence: false } %>
<%= f.validate %>

The presence validator will not be turned off because the options were overwritten by the call to FormBuilder#validate

ClientSideValidations will use ActiveRecord::Base.field_error_proc to render the error messages. Other FormBuilders will use their own settings.

If you need to change the markup of how the errors are rendered you can modify that in config/initializers/client_side_validations.rb

Please Note if you modify the markup, you will also need to modify ClientSideValidations.formBuilders['ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder']'s add and remove functions. You can override the behavior by creating a new JavaScript file called rails.validations.actionView.js that contains the following:

window.ClientSideValidations.formBuilders['ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder'] = {
  add: function(element, settings, message) {
    // custom add code here
  },

  remove: function(element, settings) {
    // custom remove code here
  }
}

Please view the code in rails.validations.js to see how the existing add and remove functions work and how best to override for your specific use-case.

Client Side Validations supports the use of custom validators. The following is an example for creating a custom validator that validates the format of email addresses.

Let's say you have several models that all have email fields and you are validating the format of that email address on each one. This is a common validation and could probably benefit from a custom validator. We're going to put the validator into config/initializers/email_validator.rb

class EmailValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator
  def validate_each(record, attr_name, value)
    unless value =~ /^([^@\s]+)@((?:[-a-z0-9]+\.)+[a-z]{2,})$/i
      record.errors.add(attr_name, :email, options.merge(value: value))
    end
  end
end

# This allows us to assign the validator in the model
module ActiveModel::Validations::HelperMethods
  def validates_email(*attr_names)
    validates_with EmailValidator, _merge_attributes(attr_names)
  end
end

Heads-up!: Put custom initializers in config/initializers, otherwise named validator helpers will not be available and migrations will not work.

Next we need to add the error message to the Rails i18n file config/locales/en.yml

# config/locales/en.yml
en:
  errors:
    messages:
      email: "Not an email address"

Finally we need to add a client side validator. This can be done by hooking into the ClientSideValidations.validator object. Create a new file app/assets/javascripts/rails.validations.customValidators.js

// The options variable is a JSON Object
// The element variable is a DOM element
window.ClientSideValidations.validators.local.email = function (element, options) {
  // Your validator code goes in here
  if (!/^([^@\s]+)@((?:[-a-z0-9]+\.)+[a-z]{2,})$/i.test(element.value)) {
    // When the value fails to pass validation you need to return the error message.
    // It can be derived from validator.message
    return options.message
  }
}

That's it! Now you can use the custom validator as you would any other validator in your model

# app/models/person.rb
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_email :email
end

Client Side Validations will apply the new validator and validate your forms as needed.

There are many reasons why you might want to enable, disable, or even completely reset the bound validation events on the client. ClientSideValidations offers a simple API for this.

If you have rendered a new form via AJAX into your page you will need to enable that form for validation:

ClientSideValidations.enable(newForm)

You should attach this to an event that is fired when the new HTML renders.

You can use the same function if you introduce new inputs to an existing form:

ClientSideValidations.enable(newInput)

If you wish to turn off validations entirely on a form:

ClientSideValidations.disable(form)

You can reset the current state of the validations, clear all error messages, and reattach clean event handlers:

ClientSideValidations.reset(form)

ClientSideValidations will run callbacks based upon the state of the element or form. The following callbacks are supported:

• ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.after(element, eventData)
• ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.before(element, eventData)
• ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.fail(element, message, callback, eventData)
• ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.pass(element, callback, eventData)
• ClientSideValidations.callbacks.form.after(form, eventData)
• ClientSideValidations.callbacks.form.before(form, eventData)
• ClientSideValidations.callbacks.form.fail(form, eventData)
• ClientSideValidations.callbacks.form.pass(form, eventData)

The names of the callbacks should be pretty straight forward. For example, ClientSideValidations.callbacks.form.fail will be called if a form failed to validate. And ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.before will be called before that particular element's validations are run.

All element callbacks receive the DOM element as the first parameter and the native event object as the second parameter. ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.fail() receives the failed message as the second parameter, the callback for adding error fields as the third parameter, and the eventData object as the fourth parameter. ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.pass() receives the callback for removing the error fields as the second parameter. The error field callbacks must still be invoked by your custom callback.

All form callbacks receive the DOM form element as the first parameter and the native event object as the second parameter.

Here is an example callback that animates the error message when validation fails:

window.ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.fail = function (element, message, callback) {
  callback()

  var messageElement = element.parentElement.querySelector('.message')

  if (messageElement) {
    if (typeof messageElement.animate === 'function') {
      messageElement.animate(
        [
          { opacity: 0, transform: 'translateX(-8px)' },
          { opacity: 1, transform: 'translateX(0)' }
        ],
        { duration: 250, easing: 'ease-out', fill: 'both' }
      )
    } else {
      messageElement.style.opacity = '1'
      messageElement.style.transform = 'translateX(0)'
    }
  }
}

window.ClientSideValidations.callbacks.element.pass = function (element, callback) {
  callback()
}

.message {
  background-color: red;
  border-bottom-right-radius: 5px 5px;
  border-top-right-radius: 5px 5px;
  display: inline-block;
  padding: 2px 5px;
}

Finally uncomment the ActionView::Base.field_error_proc override in config/initializers/client_side_validations.rb

If you want to disable some validators, set the disabled_validators config variable in config/initializers/client_side_validations.rb:

# Example: disable the presence validator
ClientSideValidations::Config.disabled_validators = [:presence]

Note that the FormBuilder will automatically skip building validators that are disabled.

By default, ClientSideValidations will automatically validate the form.

If for some reason you would like to manually validate the form (for example you're working with a multi-step form), you can use the following approach:

const input = document.getElementById('myInputField')
const form = input.form
const validators = form.ClientSideValidations.settings.validators

// Validate a single field
ClientSideValidations.isValid(input, validators)

// Validate the whole form
ClientSideValidations.isValid(form, validators)

To manually validate a single field, you may also trigger a focusout event:

input.dispatchEvent(new Event('focusout', { bubbles: true }))

Brian Cardarella

Geremia Taglialatela

We are very thankful for the many contributors

This gem follows Semantic Versioning

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@dockyard

Licensed under the MIT license