Display form validation errors next to each field

Question

I am working on a simple contact form written in php and have almost everything setup as I would like for it to be except right now, all validation errors are displaying in a div on the top of my form, and I would like to change the code below so they are displayed next to the form field that caused the error, but I am not sure how to accomplish this so I have come to the experts for some advise.

PHP Validation Routine

$frm_valid = new Validate();

if(isset($_POST['submit'])){

$rules=array(
    array('Type'=>'Required','Var'=>$_POST['name'],'Msg'=>'Name field is required.'),
    array('Type'=>'Required','Var'=>$_POST['email'],'Msg'=>'Email address field is required.'),
    array('Type'=>'Email','Var'=>$_POST['email'],'Msg'=>'Your email address format is invalid.'),
    array('Type'=>'Required','Var'=>$_POST['subject'],'Msg'=>'Subject field is required.'),
    array('Type'=>'Required','Var'=>$_POST['message'],'Msg'=>'Message field is required.'),
);


$result = $frm_valid->Valid($rules);

if(is_array($result)){
    // Print validation errors (if any)
    echo('<div"><b>The form cannot be submitted until the following errors are corrected.</b><ul>');

    foreach($result as $key=>$val){
      echo '<li>'.$val.'</li>';
    }
    echo('</ul></div><br />');
  } 
  else {
    // Do something else.
  }
}

Forms HTML

<form action="<? echo htmlentities($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']); ?>" method="post">
    <input type="text" name="name" value="" /> <br />

    <input type="text" name="email" value="" />  <br />

    <input type="text" name="subject" value="" /> <br />

    <textarea name="message" cols="80" rows="7"></textarea> <br />

    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send" />
</form>

would using html5's validation feasible? something like this http://www.the-art-of-web.com/html/html5-form-validation/ — ianace
I still get many visitors on my site that use IE7 (who knows why) and so an HTML5 solution will be out of the question here. I wish it were that simple tho. — nosx

Praveen Kumar Purushothaman Praveen Kumar Purushothaman · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-28T03:30:47

You need to change the whole code for this!!! The structure, perhaps this way:

<form action="<?php echo htmlentities($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']); ?>">
    <ul>
        <li>
            <label>
                <span>Name</span>
                <input type="text" name="name" />
                <small class="errorText"><?php echo ($_POST["name"] == "") ? "This field is required" : ""; ?></small>
            </label>
        </li>
        <li>
            <label>
                <span>Email</span>
                <input type="text" name="email" />
                <small class="errorText"><?php echo ($_POST["email"] == "") ? "This field is required" : ""; ?></small>
            </label>
        </li>
        <li>
            <label>
                <span>Subject</span>
                <input type="text" name="subject" />
                <small class="errorText"><?php echo ($_POST["subject"] == "") ? "This field is required" : ""; ?></small>
            </label>
        </li>
        <li>
            <label>
                <span>Message</span>
                <textarea name="message" cols="80" rows="7"></textarea>
                <small class="errorText"><?php echo ($_POST["message"] == "") ? "This field is required" : ""; ?></small>
            </label>
        </li>
        <li>
            <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send" />
        </li>
    </ul>
</form>

And the CSS for the same:

* {font-family: Segoe UI, Tahoma;}
h1 {font-weight: bold; font-size: 14pt; padding: 5px 0; margin: 5px 0; border: 1px solid #999; border-width: 1px 0;}
input[type='submit'] {padding: 5px 20px; cursor: pointer;}
ul, li {display: block; list-style: none; margin: 0; padding: 0;}
ul li {padding: 5px 0;}
ul li label span {display: block; cursor: pointer;}
ul li label .errorText {color: #f00; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;}
ul li label textarea {width: 300px;}

You can see a live demo here: Demo

Error Handling in PHP

Keep an error variable for each field. Say,

<?php
    $error = array(
        "name" => "",
        "email" => "",
        "subject" => "",
        "message" => ""
    );
?>

Update them with the errors and display them below.

<?php
    if (empty()$_POST["email"])
        $error["email"] = "Email is required!";
    elseif (!isEmail($_POST["email"]))
        $error["email"] = "Not a Valid Email!";
?>

If there are no errors, it would be empty and the user doesn't see the error message. In your Forms Code, you need to just update this way:

<small class="errorText"><?php echo $error["name"]; ?></small>
<small class="errorText"><?php echo $error["email"]; ?></small>

where in the backend, the $error["email"] would have either "This field is required" or "Not a valid email address!".

Display form validation errors next to each field

2 Answers

Error Handling in PHP