Validation Messages

Each validator based on Laminas\Validator\ValidatorInterface provides one or multiple messages in the case of a failed validation. You can use this information to set your own messages, or to translate existing messages which a validator could return to something different.

Validation messages are defined as constant/template pairs, with the constant representing a translation key. Such constants are defined per-class. Let's look into Laminas\Validator\GreaterThan for a descriptive example:

protected $messageTemplates = [
    self::NOT_GREATER => "'%value%' is not greater than '%min%'",
];

The constant self::NOT_GREATER refers to the failure and is used as the message key, and the message template itself is used as the value within the message array.

You can retrieve all message templates from a validator by using the getMessageTemplates() method. It returns the above array containing all messages a validator could return in the case of a failed validation.

$validator = new Laminas\Validator\GreaterThan();
$messages  = $validator->getMessageTemplates();

Using the setMessage() method you can set another message to be returned in case of the specified failure.

use Laminas\Validator\GreaterThan;

$validator = new GreaterThan();
$validator->setMessage('Please enter a lower value', GreaterThan::NOT_GREATER);

The second parameter defines the failure which will be overridden. When you omit this parameter, then the given message will be set for all possible failures of this validator.

Using pre-translated validation messages

laminas-validator is shipped with more than 45 different validators with more than 200 failure messages. It can be a tedious task to translate all of these messages. For your convenience, pre-translated messages are provided in the laminas/laminas-i18n-resources package:

$ composer require laminas/laminas-i18n-resources

To translate all validation messages to German for example, attach a translator to Laminas\Validator\AbstractValidator using these resource files.

use Laminas\I18n\Translator\Resources;
use Laminas\Mvc\I18n\Translator;
use Laminas\Validator\AbstractValidator;

$translator = new Laminas\Mvc\I18n\Translator();
$translator->addTranslationFilePattern(
    'phpArray',
    Resources::getBasePath(),
    Resources::getPatternForValidator()
);

AbstractValidator::setDefaultTranslator($translator);

Supported languages

The supported languages may not be complete. New languages will be added with each release. Additionally feel free to use the existing resource files to make your own translations.

You could also use these resource files to rewrite existing translations. So you are not in need to create these files manually yourself.

Limit the size of a validation message

Sometimes it is necessary to limit the maximum size a validation message can have; as an example, when your view allows a maximum size of 100 chars to be rendered on one line. To enable this, Laminas\Validator\AbstractValidator is able to automatically limit the maximum returned size of a validation message.

To get the actual set size use Laminas\Validator\AbstractValidator::getMessageLength(). If it is -1, then the returned message will not be truncated. This is default behaviour.

To limit the returned message size, use Laminas\Validator\AbstractValidator::setMessageLength(). Set it to any integer size you need. When the returned message exceeds the set size, then the message will be truncated and the string **...** will be added instead of the rest of the message.

Laminas\Validator\AbstractValidator::setMessageLength(100);

Where is this parameter used?

The set message length is used for all validators, even for self defined ones, as long as they extend Laminas\Validator\AbstractValidator.