Using the Validators.validateAll() method to validate a form

I recently saw this issue in FlexCoders and filed a bug for the poster. Well, it turns out the bug I filed was a duplicate of an existing bug, and that bug has been fixed (in Flex 3 — codename:Moxie). So, long story longer, here’s how you can use the Validator class’s validateAll() method to validate a form (which may or may not have enabled validators).

Full code (and workaround) after the jump.

This bug was reportedly fixed in build 176281, so if you have an older Flex 3 build, you may need to use the Flex 2 workaround below. Or, you could go to the nightly Flex 3 SDK builds page on the Adobe Labs site and download a build newer than 176281, which is basically anything newer than Thursday July 12, 2007.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- FLEX 3 SOLUTION -->
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="vertical" verticalAlign="middle" backgroundColor="white" creationComplete="initApp()">

    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import mx.events.ValidationResultEvent;
            import mx.controls.Alert;
            import mx.validators.Validator;

            private var myValidators:Array;

            private function initApp():void {
                myValidators = [valid1, valid2];
            }

            private function clickHandler():void {
                var errors:Array = Validator.validateAll(myValidators);
                if (errors.length == 0) {
                    Alert.show("Looks valid to me.", "SUCCESS");
                }
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>

    <mx:StringValidator id="valid1" source="{ti1}" property="text" minLength="4" maxLength="6" />
    <mx:StringValidator id="valid2" source="{ti2}" property="text" minLength="4" maxLength="6" enabled="false" />

    <mx:TextInput id="ti1" />
    <mx:TextInput id="ti2" />

    <mx:Button label="validate" click="clickHandler()" />

</mx:Application>

If you are using Flex 2.0.1 (Hotfix 2 or Hotfix 3), the easiest workaroud I’ve found is to just filter the array of validators that you pass to the validateAll() method so that no validators are passed if their enabled property is set to false. Thankfully this is pretty simple if you use the Array class’s filter() method, as seen below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- FLEX 2 SOLUTION -->
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="vertical" verticalAlign="middle" backgroundColor="white" creationComplete="initApp()">

    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import mx.events.ValidationResultEvent;
            import mx.controls.Alert;
            import mx.validators.Validator;

            private var myValidators:Array;

            private function initApp():void {
                myValidators = [valid1, valid2].filter(filterDisabledValidators);
            }

            private function clickHandler():void {
                var errors:Array = Validator.validateAll(myValidators);
                if (errors.length == 0) {
                    Alert.show("Looks valid to me.", "SUCCESS");
                }
            }

            private function filterDisabledValidators(element:*, index:int, arr:Array):Boolean {
                return element.enabled;
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>

    <mx:StringValidator id="valid1" source="{ti1}" property="text" minLength="4" maxLength="6" />
    <mx:StringValidator id="valid2" source="{ti2}" property="text" minLength="4" maxLength="6" enabled="false" />

    <mx:TextInput id="ti1" />
    <mx:TextInput id="ti2" />

    <mx:Button label="validate" click="clickHandler()" />

</mx:Application>

For more information on the bug, and where I got the code for this post, see the bug in the public Flex bugbase at: http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/SDK-9408.

Happy Flexing!