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Added a lot more explanation about form field validation, including expanded 

examples. Fixed #5843, #6652, #7428.


git-svn-id: http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk@9177 bcc190cf-cafb-0310-a4f2-bffc1f526a37
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Malcolm Tredinnick 2008-10-06 11:21:11 +00:00
parent 49c61ab1ab
commit a928c563e9
1 changed files with 208 additions and 12 deletions
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docs/ref/forms/validation.txt
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@ -25,7 +25,8 @@ The three types of cleaning methods are:
* The ``clean()`` method on a Field subclass. This is responsible
for cleaning the data in a way that is generic for that type of field.
For example, a FloatField will turn the data into a Python ``float`` or
raise a ``ValidationError``.
raise a ``ValidationError``. This method returns the clean data, which
is then inserted into the ``cleaned_data`` dictionary of the form.
* The ``clean_<fieldname>()`` method in a form subclass -- where
``<fieldname>`` is replaced with the name of the form field attribute.
@ -44,6 +45,10 @@ The three types of cleaning methods are:
formfield-specific piece of validation and, possibly,
cleaning/normalizing the data.
Just like the general field ``clean()`` method, above, this method
should return the cleaned data, regardless of whether it changed
anything or not.
* The Form subclass's ``clean()`` method. This method can perform
any validation that requires access to multiple fields from the form at
once. This is where you might put in things to check that if field ``A``
@ -56,7 +61,9 @@ The three types of cleaning methods are:
Note that any errors raised by your ``Form.clean()`` override will not
be associated with any field in particular. They go into a special
"field" (called ``__all__``), which you can access via the
``non_field_errors()`` method if you need to.
``non_field_errors()`` method if you need to. If you want to attach
errors to a specific field in the form, you will need to access the
`_errors` attribute on the form, which is `described later`_.
These methods are run in the order given above, one field at a time. That is,
for each field in the form (in the order they are declared in the form
@ -64,8 +71,10 @@ definition), the ``Field.clean()`` method (or its override) is run, then
``clean_<fieldname>()``. Finally, once those two methods are run for every
field, the ``Form.clean()`` method, or its override, is executed.
As mentioned above, any of these methods can raise a ``ValidationError``. For
any field, if the ``Field.clean()`` method raises a ``ValidationError``, any
Examples of each of these methods are provided below.
As mentioned, any of these methods can raise a ``ValidationError``. For any
field, if the ``Field.clean()`` method raises a ``ValidationError``, any
field-specific cleaning method is not called. However, the cleaning methods
for all remaining fields are still executed.
@ -78,32 +87,219 @@ should iterate through ``self.cleaned_data.items()``, possibly considering the
``_errors`` dictionary attribute on the form as well. In this way, you will
already know which fields have passed their individual validation requirements.
A simple example
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _described later:
Here's a simple example of a custom field that validates its input is a string
Form subclasses and modifying field errors
==========================================
Sometimes, in a form's ``clean()`` method, you will want to add an error
message to a particular field in the form. This won't always be appropriate
and the more typical situation is to raise a ``ValidationError`` from
``Form.clean()``, which is turned into a form-wide error that is available
through the ``Form.non_field_errors()`` method.
When you really do need to attach the error to a particular field, you should
store (or amend) a key in the `Form._errors` attribute. This attribute is an
instance of a ``django.form.utils.ErrorDict`` class. Essentially, though, it's
just a dictionary. There is a key in the dictionary for each field in the form
that has an error. Each value in the dictionary is a
``django.form.utils.ErrorList`` instance, which is a list that knows how to
display itself in different ways. So you can treat `_errors` as a dictionary
mapping field names to lists.
If you want to add a new error to a particular field, you should check whether
the key already exists in `self._errors` or not. If not, create a new entry
for the given key, holding an empty ``ErrorList`` instance. In either case,
you can then append your error message to the list for the field name in
question and it will be displayed when the form is displayed.
There is an example of modifying `self._errors` in the following section.
.. admonition:: What's in a name?
You may be wondering why is this attribute called ``_errors`` and not
``errors``. Normal Python practice is to prefix a name with an underscore
if it's not for external usage. In this case, you are subclassing the
``Form`` class, so you are essentially writing new internals. In effect,
you are given permission to access some of the internals of ``Form``.
Of course, any code outside your form should never access ``_errors``
directly. The data is available to external code through the ``errors``
property, which populates ``_errors`` before returning it).
Another reason is purely historical: the attribute has been called
``_errors`` since the early days of the forms module and changing it now
(particularly since ``errors`` is used for the read-only property name)
would be inconvenient for a number of reasons. You can use whichever
explanation makes you feel more comfortable. The result is the same.
Using validation in practice
=============================
The previous sections explained how validation works in general for forms.
Since it can sometimes be easier to put things into place by seeing each
feature in use, here are a series of small examples that use each of the
previous features.
Form field default cleaning
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Let's firstly create a custom form field that validates its input is a string
containing comma-separated e-mail addresses, with at least one address. We'll
keep it simple and assume e-mail validation is contained in a function called
``is_valid_email()``. The full class::
``is_valid_email()``. The full class looks like this::
from django import forms
class MultiEmailField(forms.Field):
def clean(self, value):
"""
Check that the field contains one or more comma-separated emails
and normalizes the data to a list of the email strings.
"""
if not value:
raise forms.ValidationError('Enter at least one e-mail address.')
emails = value.split(',')
for email in emails:
if not is_valid_email(email):
raise forms.ValidationError('%s is not a valid e-mail address.' % email)
# Always return the cleaned data.
return emails
Let's alter the ongoing ``ContactForm`` example to demonstrate how you'd use
this in a form. Simply use ``MultiEmailField`` instead of ``forms.EmailField``,
like so::
Every form that uses this field will have this ``clean()`` method run before
anything else can be done with the field's data. This is cleaning that is
specific to this type of field, regardless of how it is subsequently used.
Let's create a simple ``ContactForm`` to demonstrate how you'd use this
field::
class ContactForm(forms.Form):
subject = forms.CharField(max_length=100)
message = forms.CharField()
senders = MultiEmailField()
sender = forms.EmailField()
recipients = MultiEmailField()
cc_myself = forms.BooleanField(required=False)
Simply use ``MultiEmailField`` like any other form field. When the
``is_valid()`` method is called on the form, the ``MultiEmailField.clean()``
method will be run as part of the cleaning process.
Cleaning a specific field attribute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Continuing on from the previous example, suppose that in our ``ContactForm``,
we want to make sure that the ``recipients`` field always contains the address
``"fred@example.com"``. This is validation that is specific to our form, so we
don't want to put it into the general ``MultiEmailField`` class. Instead, we
write a cleaning method that operates on the ``recipients`` field, like so::
class ContactForm(forms.Form):
# Everything as before.
...
def clean_recipients(self):
data = self.cleaned_data['recipients']
if "fred@example.com" not in data:
raise forms.ValidationError("You have forgotten about Fred!")
# Always return the cleaned data, whether you have changed it or
# not.
return data
Cleaning and validating fields that depend on each other
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Suppose we add another requirement to our contact form: if the ``cc_myself``
field is ``True``, the ``subject`` must contain the word ``"help"``. We are
performing validation on more than one field at a time, so the form's
``clean()`` method is a good spot to do this. Notice that we are talking about
the ``clean()`` method on the form here, whereas earlier we were writing a
``clean()`` method on a field. It's important to keep the field and form
difference clear when working out where to validate things. Fields are single
data points, forms are a collection of fields.
By the time the form's ``clean()`` method is called, all the individual field
clean methods will have been run (the previous two sections), so
``self.cleaned_data`` will be populated with any data that has survived so
far. So you also need to remember to allow for the fact that the fields you
are wanting to validate might not have survived the initial individual field
checks.
There are two way to report any errors from this step. Probably the most
common method is to display the error at the top of the form. To create such
an error, you can raise a ``ValidationError`` from the ``clean()`` method. For
example::
class ContactForm(forms.Form):
# Everything as before.
...
def clean(self):
cleaned_data = self.cleaned_data
cc_myself = cleaned_data.get("cc_myself")
subject = cleaned_data.get("subject")
if cc_myself and subject:
# Only do something if both fields are valid so far.
if "help" not in subject:
raise forms.ValidationError("Did not send for 'help' in "
"the subject despite CC'ing yourself.")
# Always return the full collection of cleaned data.
return cleaned_data
In this code, if the validation error is raised, the form will display an
error message at the top of the form (normally) describing the problem.
The second approach might involve assigning the error message to one of the
fields. In this case, let's assign an error message to both the "subject" and
"cc_myself" rows in the form display. Be careful when doing this in practice,
since it can lead to confusing form output. We're showing what is possible
here and leaving it up to you and your designers to work out what works
effectively in your particular situation. Our new code (replacing the previous
sample) looks like this::
from django.forms.utils import ErrorList
class ContactForm(forms.Form):
# Everything as before.
...
def clean(self):
cleaned_data = self.cleaned_data
cc_myself = cleaned_data.get("cc_myself")
subject = cleaned_data.get("subject")
if cc_myself and subject and "help" not in subject:
# We know these are not in self._errors now (see discussion
# below).
msg = u"Must put 'help' in subject when cc'ing yourself."
self._errors["cc_myself"] = ErrorList([msg])
self._errors["subject"] = ErrorList([msg])
# These fields are no longer valid. Remove them from the
# cleaned data.
del cleaned_data["cc_myself"]
del cleaned_data["subject"]
# Always return the full collection of cleaned data.
return cleaned_data
As you can see, this approach requires a bit more effort, not withstanding the
extra design effort to create a sensible form display. The details are worth
noting, however. Firstly, earlier we mentioned that you might need to check if
the field name keys already exist in the ``_errors`` dictionary. In this case,
since we know the fields exist in ``self.cleaned_data``, they must have been
valid when cleaned as individual fields, so there will be no corresonding
entries in ``_errors``.
Secondly, once we have decided that the combined data in the two fields we are
considering aren't valid, we must remember to remove them from the
``cleaned_data``.
In fact, Django will currently completely wipe out the ``cleaned_data``
dictionary if there are any errors in the form. However, this behaviour may
change in the future, so it's not a bad idea to clean up after yourself in the
first place.