How to add a global error to an Ecto Changeset

Question

I want to set an error on an Ecto.Changeset that is not specific to a field.

In my case, I have a login form and I want to set an error saying that either the email or the password is invalid. However I still want to highlight the email or password field when they are empty.

In Rails you can do that by adding an entry to errors[:base]. Is there an equivalent in Ecto ?

Dogbert Dogbert · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-15T16:50:23

Ecto.Changeset.add_error allows you to pass any atom as the key, it doesn't have to be a field of that model. You can add the error to :base like this:

add_error(changeset, :base, "email or password is invalid")

and then in your template, either do:

<%= error_tag f, :base %>

or (after checking if there's an error):

<%= @changeset.errors[:base] %>

Another option for your usecase is to add the error on both :email and :password

changeset
|> add_error(:email, "email or password is invalid")
|> add_error(:password, "email or password is invalid")

How to add a global error to an Ecto Changeset

1 Answers