Form Validation Ideas

Trihedralguy has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Form Validation Ideas by Cody Pendant (Prior) on Feb 25, 2008 at 02:59 UTC
You want a module like Data::FormValidator. And you don't need to transfer the params to variables before you test them, if that's what you meant by this: `$blah = param('whatever');` [download] to validate your params, you can just do `if( param('whatever') ne '' ){ # error code here }` [download] Nobody says perl looks like line-noise any more kids today don't know what line-noise IS ...	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Form Validation Ideas by kyle (Abbot) on Feb 25, 2008 at 01:57 UTC
I haven't used it myself, but this sounds like what CGI::FormBuilder does.	[reply]
Re: Form Validation Ideas by hesco (Deacon) on Feb 25, 2008 at 03:19 UTC
I do use it, and kyle is right. CGI::FormBuilder is exactly what you want. I have found that CGI::FormBuilder greatly accelerates for me the development of cgi web forms. It was so tempting to rush through the process and deploy something without the validation in place, before I discovered this module. Now with very little overhead I can usually produce useful and working webforms in a couple of hours. It even provides javascript elements which prevalidate form input on the browser side, without making me learn javascript. Check it out on CPAN. -- Hugh if( $lal && $lol ) { $life++; }	[reply]
Re^2: Form Validation Ideas by chrism01 (Friar) on Feb 25, 2008 at 07:11 UTC
Hesco, I'm trying to use CGI::FormBuilder, but I can't get the forms in the centre of the page, they are always left justified. Can you tell me how? Thx Chris	[reply]
Re: Form Validation Ideas by andreas1234567 (Vicar) on Feb 25, 2008 at 07:36 UTC
Embperl::Form::Validate does both client- and server-side validation. -- Andreas	[reply]
Re: Form Validation Ideas by spatterson (Pilgrim) on Feb 25, 2008 at 17:36 UTC
Simple check that every parameter is alphanumeric `my %params = CGI::Vars; foreach my $p (keys %params) { unless ($params{$p} =~ /[[:alpha:]]/) { push @error_params, $p } } print "these params failed: ", join(", ", @error_params);` [download] If you know how many parameters to expect, you could count the number of parameters which were set: `my %params = CGI::Vars; if (scalar(keys %params) < $no_expected) { print "error, you missed something."; }` [download] just another cpan module author	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Form Validation Ideas by zby (Vicar) on Feb 25, 2008 at 17:46 UTC
I use HTML::FormFu. Not really simple - but, I would say, comprehensible.	[reply]
Re: Form Validation Ideas by Trihedralguy (Pilgrim) on Feb 25, 2008 at 13:21 UTC
I'm not quite sure that I know that FormBuilder is the option I'm looking for. I already know a bit of Javascript and I have all the javascript validation handled. Now its time for perl. Are there any solutions that do not deal with javascript validation, just perlside?	[reply]
Re^2: Form Validation Ideas by stiller (Friar) on Feb 25, 2008 at 13:59 UTC
For the part of your question about quickly testing a lot of params to see if they hava a value, you could do something like: `my %missing; for my $item (qw{fname sname age street city zip etc}){ $missing{$item} = param($item) ? 0 : 1; }` [download] While you're at it you could do some basic cleansing inside the loop, and attack specific fields afterwards. hth	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Form Validation Ideas by Fletch (Bishop) on Feb 25, 2008 at 16:16 UTC
That works until you have a parameter where "0" is a valid value. `my @param_names = $q->param(); my %present_params; @present_params{ @param_names } = (1) x @param_names;` [download] The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie.	[reply] [d/l]