@shopmacher/validate

sm-validate

Validate is an extensible client side validation library for form inputs. It provides a set of basic validators and the possibility to write your own.

Table of Contents

• Installation
  • UMD
  • AMD
  • CommonJS
  • ESM
• Usage
  • Initialization
  • Validating forms
  • Configuration
  • Attributes
  • CSS classes
• Custom validators
• Todo
• Contributing
• License

Installation

Run npm install -S @shopmacher/validate to install the package from npm. Alternatively, you can download the latest release from this repository.

To include the library, refer to the module definition you are using.

UMD

Include the validate.js and validate.css from the lib directory in your project. This makes Validate available in the global scope.

AMD

Adjust your require.config.js to include the following code:

packages: [{
    name: '@shopmacher/validate',
    location: 'node_modules/@shopmacher/validate/lib',
    main: 'validate'
}]

Now you can use the slider in your project like this:

define('myModule', ['@shopmacher/validate'], function(Validate) {
    // Access Validate object here
});

CommonJS

Require the slider via const Validate = require('@shopmacher/validate'); and use the Validate variable to access its methods.

ESM

Import the slider via import Validate from '@shopmacher/validate'; and access it via the Validate variable.

Usage

This section describes how to initialise and configure the validator.

Initialization

The library can either intialized via the class constructor for a single input, or via a static method for all inputs that posses the attribute data-validate="true".

Class constructor

const $input = document.querySelector('.my-input');
const validator = new Validator($input);

Static initialization

const validators = Validator.init();

In case of static initialization, the method returns an array of validators. This can later be used to validate forms on submit.

Validating forms

To validate inputs on form submit, you can attach the validators from the init method or the constructor to a form.

const $form = document.querySelector('#my-form');
const validators = Validator.init();
Validator.attachToForm($form, validators, {});

This will check all validators, when the form is submitted and prevent the submit, if one of the validators fails.

Additionally, the third argument of the attachToForm method is an options object that can be used to configure the behavior of the validation further. It can have the following options:

• preventSubmit (boolean, default: false) - prevents the submitting of the form, even if it is valid

Configuration

To validate an input, the library provides a set of basic validators that are controlled via data-attributes. The following example would validate the input for a minimum length of 5 characters and output the result into an HTML element.

<input
    data-validate="true"
    data-validate-minlength="5"
    data-validate-minlength-message="Please enter at least 5 chars"
    data-validate-error-element="#validate-message" />

<div id="validate-message"></div>

The validation triggers when the user leaves the input field or does not type for 300 ms (default).

For a list of validations and configurations, please refer to the table below.

Attributes

Those are the data-attributes you can use to configure the validators.

All attributes are prefixed by data-validate-. The messages that will be emitted when the validator fails uses the -message-suffix on the attribute (as seen in the example above).

Type	Attribute	Description	Values	Required
Initialization	validate	If this attribute is true, the input is eligible for being validated.	boolean	yes
Validation	minlength	Minimum amount of characters required in the input	number	no
Validation	maxlength	Maximum amount of characters allowed in the input	number	no
Validation	empty-message	Message that is emitted, when the input is empty. This does not need the empty attribute.	any	no
Validation	type	Type of the inputs content.	"text"	"number"
Validation	regex	Content of input is validated via the provided regular expression. Example: ^\d+$	string / RegExp	no
Validation	hidden	Validate fields that are not shown to the user (hidden fields). Default: true	boolean	no
Configuration	invalid-message	Provides a generic message for failing validators. This can be used, if you do not want to provide separate messages for every validator.	any	no
Configuration	error-element	Provides an element selector to specify the element that the validation messages are rendered to. Example: #my-output-dev. Internally, this is passed to querySelector.	string	no
Configuration	debounce	Time in ms that the validate event is debounced when the user types in an input field. Defaults to 300 ms.	number	no

CSS classes

Whenever a validation failes, the CSS class sm-validate-error is added to the validated element. This allows you to take control over different styling of invalid inputs.

Custom validators

In addition to using the predefined validators, you can provide your own.

Defining a validator

A validator is a JavaScript function that follows a predetermined scheme. A validator to check, if the inputs value is the string Hello would be implemented like this:

// ECMAScript 2015
const validator = {
    attr: 'hello',
    create: ($input, { value, message }) => ({
        isValid: () => $input.value === 'Hello',
        message
    })
};

In order to perform validation based on asynchronous results, the isValid method can return a Promise, as seen in the following example:

const validator = {
    attr: 'hello',
    create: ($input, { value, message }) => ({
        isValid: () => new Promise(resolve => resolve(true)),
        message
    })
};

The property attr defines, through which data-attribite the validator will be accessible. In case of the example above, the data-attribute data-validate-hello can be attached to the input to use the validator. The validation message that is emitted if the validator fails can be defined through the use of the attribute data-validate-hello-message.

The create method returns the instance of the validator that the library is going to use.

It receives the following parameters:

• $input - the input field the validator is called upon
• An object consisting of:
  • value - the value of the input
  • message - the validation message (this is mainly used to pass it through)

The create method ifself returns an object consisting of:

• isValid - a function that returns true, if the input is valid or a Promise resolving to true
• message - the validation message
• triggerOnChange - boolean (default: true) that determines, if the validator should validate on change of the input
• triggerOnSubmit - boolean (default: true) that determines, if the validator should validate on form submit

Using a custom validator

Once defined, the custom validator(s) can be passed to either the static init function or the class constructor.

const validator = { /* your validator */ };

Validator.init([validator]);

// or

new Validator($element, [validator]);

Note that the validators need to be passed as an array, which means that you can pass as many as you want.

Todo

• Implements basic validators
• Provide methods to plug-in custom validators
• Extend documentation to cover custom validators
• Write unit tests

Contributing

To contribute to this project, fork the repository and create your feature/hotfix branch with whatever you want to add.

Install the project dependencies using npm i and start the development server via npm start. A webpack-dev-server will now listen on port 8080.

When you are finished developing, make sure to add a documented pull request.

Please note: Pull requests for new features that are not typed via flowtype as well as not following the general code style used in this project will be rejected.

License

MIT