Form Builder

Nishchay provides class based approach to create form including its validations. In form class, method represents form fields. Form class also protects against CSRF(Cross site request forgery). Form class must extends Nishchay\Form\Form to have all features of form building, validations and csrf.

Form class have various method to create input field for the form. In form class method which follows get{FieldName} are considered as form fields. Here {Fieldname} must have first character in upperCase. Inside form field method, we can use any of following methods to create form field for the form.

Method	Description	Class
newButton	To create button	Button
newInput	To create input field like text, password	Input
newInputChoice	To create radio or checkbox button	InputChoice
newSelect	To create select field	Select
newTextArea	To create textarea	TextArea

Method returns instance of form field class is mentioned in class column. All of Field class are part of Nishchay\Form\Field\Type\ namespace.

Form class

Let's first create form class then will move to its explanation.

use Nishchay\Form\Form;
use Nishchay\Http\Request\Request;
use Nishchay\Attributes\Form\Form as FormAttribute;

/**
* Login form class
*/
#[FormAttribute]
class RegisterForm extends Form {

    /**
    * Just calls parent construct method for setting form name and its HTTP method.
    */
    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct('register-form', Request::POST);
    }
}

Constructor of Form class requires two parameter, form name and HTTP method. Form name is used for CSRF token to be saved in Session and it should be unique throughout application.

Printing form

To print form we first we need create an instance of form than we can use startForm method to print start tag of form and endForm to print end tag of form.

Form start tag

$form = new RegisterForm();

echo $form->startForm();

Above code will print below tag:

<form method="POST" action="">
  <input type="hidden" name="csrf" value="{CSRF_TOKEN}" />
</form>

By default form action is current route. We can action using attributes. Learn more about attribute in Attribute section.

Form end tag

echo $form->endForm();

Which will prints:

</form>

Attributes

Form and Form field classes contains setAttribute method to set attribute for form and form field. Using which can set attributes for form like action, onsubmit event and etc. Same thing applies for form fields.

In Form start tag section we have printed form which have action to current route. Let's change action attribute of form. Setting attributes of form should be done in __construct method only. For the form field it should be in its method.

public function __construct()
{
    parent::__construct('register-form', Request::POST);
    $this->setAttribute('action', '/services/accountService/register')
            ->setAttribute('onsubmit', 'return validateRegisterForm(this)');
}

Now if we print start tag of form, it will print below HTML code:

<form
  method="POST"
  action="/services/accountService/register"
  onsubmit="return validateRegisterForm(this)"
></form>

Form fields

To better understand each form fields we are taking an example for registration. We will start with creating text than we will keep improving our Form class.

Each form field method except newTextarea and newSelect requires two parameter, first one for field name and second for the input type. Each method in form class must follow get{FieldName} format for the field and method must return form field.

Input field

Using newInput we can create form fields like text, password and etc. This method does not allow creating radio and checkbox field which have its separate method newInputChoice.

Text field

use Nishchay\Form\Form;
use Nishchay\Attributes\Form\Form as FormAttribute;

#[FormAttribute]
class RegisterForm extends Form {
    # Constructor code

    public function getEmail() {
        return $this->newInput('email', 'text');
    }
}

This is it, we have create form field for RegisterForm. Now let print this input field.

echo $form->startForm();
echo $form-->getEmail();
echo $form->endForm();

HTML output of above code:

<form method="POST" action="">
  <input name="email" type="text" />
</form>

Similarly we can also create password field.

public function getPassword() {
    return $this->newInput('password', 'password');
}

File

To create file form field, pass input type as file while creating form field.

public function getProfilePic() {
    return $this->newInput('profilePic', 'file');
}

Radio

Radio and checkbox fields are created using newInputChoice method. Below code demonstrate how radio button for the gender option can be created.

use Nishchay\Form\Form;
use Nishchay\Attributes\Form\Form as FormAttribute;

#[FormAttribute]
class RegisterForm extends Form {

    # Other fields

    public function getGender() {
        return $this->newInputChoice('gender', 'radio');
    }
}

Method getGender won't print anything if we call it, because we haven't added any choices to it. We can add choices using setChoices method. All choices should be passed in one call as an array where key presents choice value and value presents its HTML value.

use Nishchay\Form\Form;
use Nishchay\Attributes\Form\Form as FormAttribute;

#[FormAttribute]
class RegisterForm extends Form {

    # Other fields

    public function getGender() {
        return $this->newInputChoice('gender', 'radio')
                        ->setChoices([
                            'male' => 'Male',
                            'female' => 'Female'
                ]);
    }
}

Now just call getGender and it will print below HTML code:

<input name="gender" type="radio" value="male" /> Male
<input name="gender" type="radio" value="female" /> Female

Calling getGender prints all choices but in some case we might need to print one choice at a time. We can print single choice getChoice method.

Here first parameter should be choice name and second is for printing its HTML value along with it.

echo $form->getGender()->getChoice('male');

Above will print only one choice:

<input name="gender" type="radio" value="male" Male />

We can also print choice without its HTML value

echo $form->getGender()->getChoice('male', true);

To get only HTML value of choice:

echo $form->getGender()->getChoiceHTML('male');

Checkbox

Checkbox field can be created just like radio button, we just have to pass checkbox type while creating field.

public function getIsTermsAccepted() {
    return $this->newInputChoice('isTermsAccepted', 'checkbox')
                        ->setChoices([
                            '1' => 'Please accept terms'
                ]);
}

HTML output of above field:

<input name="isTermsAccepted" type="checkbox" value="1" /> Please accept terms

Select

Select field is created using newSelect method.

public function getGender()
{
    return $this->newSelect('gender')
                    ->setChoices([
                        'male' => 'Male',
                        'female' => 'Female'
            ]);
}

Printing Select field

echo $form->getGender();

Above will print below HTML code.

<select name="gender">
  <option value="male">Male</option>
  <option value="female">Female</option>
</select>

Textarea

Using newTextarea we can create textarea form field, see below code:

public function getAboutYou()
{
    return $this->newTextArea('aboutYou');
}

Printing above form field:

$form->getAboutYou();

Above code will output HTML code as shown below:

<textarea name="aboutYou"></textarea>

Button

Using newButton we can create submit or normal button. Below code demonstrate how submit can be created.

public function getSubmit()
{
    return $this->newButton('submit', 'Submit')
            ->setValue('Submit');
}

Printing button:

$form->getSubmit();

HTML form of above button

<button name="submit" type="submit">Submit</button>

Form field value

All of form fields have setValue using which we can set value of field:

$form->getEmail()->setValue('demo@example.com');

CSRF[time:120]

Form class has CSRF enabled by default. Upon creating an instance of Form class it also initializes CSRF for the form and saves CSRF into session. When we print form using startForm it also prints CSRF token in input hidden field so that when users submit form, server receives same token and validator verify received token with token saved in session for the submitted form. If there's mismatch in token then Nishchay\Exception\BadRequestException exception is thrown.

Each form has its name and CSRF token is saved in session with csrf_{formName} format. This is why we should use unique name for each form in an application.

By default CSRF configured to be received in request method same as form and withcsrf parameter name. This can be changed using getCSRF method which returns instance of CSRF. See below code:

use Nishchay\Form\Form;
use Nishchay\Attributes\Form\Form as FormAttribute;

#[FormAttribute]
class RegisterForm extends Form {

    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct('register-form', Request::POST);

        $this->getCSRF()
                ->setName('token');
    }
}

Above code just changes csrf name. Learn here for more about CSRF for changing its configuration.

Whenever we call validate method to validate form, validator first verifies CSRF. Once CSRF has been verified CSRF proceeds for validation of form fields.

NOTE There's way to disable CSRF for the form but we recommend not to do that unless form is being used in web services. Below code shows how we can disable CSRF for the form

use Nishchay\Form\Form;
use Nishchay\Attributes\Form\Form as FormAttribute;

#[FormAttribute]
class RegisterForm extends Form {

    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct('register-form', Request::POST);

        $this->removeCSRF(true);
    }
}

If we pass false instead of true it enables CSRF again.

Form field validation rules

We can add all kind of validation to form fields. Please learn more various validations here.

Make field required

public function getEmail()
{
    return $this->newInput('email', 'text')
            ->isRequired();
}

To make optional again, pass false to isRequired method.

Set validations

We can set single or multiple validation for the field at time. If we want to set multiple validations in one call pass validations rule in an array. Below code demonstrate how we can add following validation rule to form field.

1. Field is required
2. Value should contain only alphabets.
3. Value character should be between 3 and 20.

public function getFullname()
{
    return $this->newInput('fullName', 'text')
                    ->isRequired(true)
                    ->setValidation('string:alpha')
                    ->setValidation('string:min', 3)
                    ->setValidation('string:max', 20);
}

Using array:

public function getFullname()
{
    return $this->newInput('fullName', 'text')
                    ->isRequired(true)
                    ->setValidation([
                        'string:alpha',
                        'string:min' => 3,
                        'string:max' => 20
                    ]);
}

Setting validation for the field is same as setting validation using Validator class. In Validator we also need to pass field name but for the form field we do not have to do that because we call set validation on form field.

Set message

We can set single or multiple messages in one call. To set multiple message, pass an array where key presents rule name and its value is validation message.

public function getFullname()
{
    return $this->newInput('fullName', 'text')
                    ->isRequired(true)
                    ->setValidation([
                        'string:alpha',
                        'string:min' => 3,
                        'string:max' => 20
                    ])
                    ->setMessage([
                        'required' => 'Please enter Full name',
                        'string:alpha' => 'Full name should contain only alphabet'
                    ]);
}

If we don't set validation message, Validator uses default error message.

Validating form

Once form is submitted, form validated by calling validate method. This method returns true if validations are passed otherwise it returns false. If there's no validation done it returns null.

Before validating form, validator first verifies CSRF. If there's CSRF verification fails, validate method throws Nishchay\Exception\BadRequestException exception.

if ($form->validate() === false) {
    return $form->getErrors();
}

Validation error

If form validation fails, we can get all errors by using getErrors method.

$form->getErrors();

We can also fetch error message of specific field by passing its field name.

return $form->getErrors($form->getEmail()->getName());

Fetch request value

To fetch request value of any field call getRequest method on the form field. This returns false, if request parameter does not present for the field.

echo $form->getEmail()->getRequest();

This method returns request parameter value for the field based on HTTP method set for the form. As an example, if we set HTTP method POST for the form, getRequest returns parameter value from POST body only.

If form field is file, it checks for file in request body. If there is file uploaded then it returns instance of RequestFile.