In Grails, how do I display validation error messages next to the fields?

Question

The Grails 2.0.4 documentation for validation shows you how to display error messages at the top of the page and how to add a css class to an element if a field is invalid, but it doesn't tell you how to display the error message next to the fields themselves, something like this:

      -----------------------
Name: |                     |  You must enter a name!
      -----------------------

How do you retrieve the specific error message for an invalid field and then display it next to the field it's for?

It is all in the HTML of your view. Have a look at the scaffold templates to see the default rendering. You can modify them to display the field errors wherever you wish. The fields plugin mentioned in the answers already does that. — aldrin, Jun 08 '12 at 08:49
I've created a detailed answer on how to create a custom validation and post a custom error message back to your view here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14038905/how-do-i-create-a-custom-validator-with-a-custom-error-message-in-grails/14038908#14038908 — sparkyspider, Dec 26 '12 at 10:03

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 08 '12 at 17:26

Actually, the documentation does show how to do this, it just isn't overly clear that this is what they mean:

<g:renderErrors bean="${book}" as="list" field="title"/>

If you specify the field attribute, it will only render error(s) for that field. So then it is just up to you to write the HTML accordingly.

<input type="text" ... /> <g:if test="${bean.hasErrors}"><g:renderErrors bean="${book}" as="list" field="title"/></g:if>

It can get as simple or as complicated as you would like it and while I generally like grails plugins, this just seems simple enough to do without one and you have more control over the markup.

What if the field is not linked to a bean? Suppose that you create a gsp with only a field to search about some entity...how do I display error there? — FrancescoDS, Oct 16 '14 at 14:50

score 7 · Answer 2 · edited May 02 '13 at 22:27

I use the Grails Fields plugin to do this, and it works a treat.

It makes it easy to create default templates for form field rendering. For example I have the following in grails-app/views/_fields/default/_field.gsp:

<%@ page defaultCodec="html" %>
<div class="control-group${invalid ? ' error' : ''}">
    <label class="control-label" for="${property}${index ?: ""}">${label}</label>
    <div class="controls">
        <%= widget.replace("id=\"${property}\"", "id=\"${property}${index ?: ""}\"") %>
        <g:if test="${invalid}"><span class="help-inline">${errors.join('<br>')}</span></g:if>
    </div>
</div>

As you can see from the HTML the errors are displayed inline. Here is part of my login form:

<g:form controller="home" action="login" >
    <f:field bean="user" property="email"/>
    <f:field bean="user" property="password">
        <g:field type="password" name="${property}" value="${value}"/>
    </f:field>
</g:form>

Excellent! Will try the fields plugin for sure. – Kimi Jul 01 '12 at 10:14 — Kimi, Jul 01 '12 at 10:14

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 08 '12 at 17:43

Here is the custom error in context, wrapped around username field. This will do what you want.

<dt>User Id</dt>
            <dd><g:textField name="username" value="${user?.username}"/>
            <g:hasErrors bean="${user}" field="username">
                    <g:eachError bean="${user}" field="username">
                        <p style="color: red;"><g:message error="${it}"/></p>
                    </g:eachError>
                </g:hasErrors>
            </dd>

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 08 '12 at 07:10

1

I would recommend going with Jquery validation plugin. There's several Grails plugin about this, but they are a bit out-dated. Besides, I think this task is pretty simple for using another plugin.

answered Jun 08 '12 at 07:10

Hoàng Long

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In Grails, how do I display validation error messages next to the fields?

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