.. _ref-forms-validation:

Form and field validation
=========================

Form validation happens when the data is cleaned. If you want to customize
this process, there are various places you can change, each one serving a
different purpose. Three types of cleaning methods are run during form
processing. These are normally executed when you call the ``is_valid()``
method on a form. There are other things that can trigger cleaning and
validation (accessing the ``errors`` attribute or calling ``full_clean()``
directly), but normally they won't be needed.

In general, any cleaning method can raise ``ValidationError`` if there is a
problem with the data it is processing, passing the relevant error message to
the ``ValidationError`` constructor. If no ``ValidationError`` is raised, the
method should return the cleaned (normalized) data as a Python object.

If you detect multiple errors during a cleaning method and wish to signal all
of them to the form submitter, it is possible to pass a list of errors to the
``ValidationError`` constructor.

The three types of cleaning methods are:

    * The ``clean()`` method on a Field subclass. This is responsible
      for cleaning the data in a way that is generic for that type of field.
      For example, a FloatField will turn the data into a Python ``float`` or
      raise a ``ValidationError``. This method returns the clean data, which
      is then inserted into the ``cleaned_data`` dictionary of the form.

    * The ``clean_<fieldname>()`` method in a form subclass -- where
      ``<fieldname>`` is replaced with the name of the form field attribute.
      This method does any cleaning that is specific to that particular
      attribute, unrelated to the type of field that it is. This method is not
      passed any parameters. You will need to look up the value of the field
      in ``self.cleaned_data`` and remember that it will be a Python object
      at this point, not the original string submitted in the form (it will be
      in ``cleaned_data`` because the general field ``clean()`` method, above,
      has already cleaned the data once).

      For example, if you wanted to validate that the contents of a
      ``CharField`` called ``serialnumber`` was unique,
      ``clean_serialnumber()`` would be the right place to do this. You don't
      need a specific field (it's just a ``CharField``), but you want a
      formfield-specific piece of validation and, possibly,
      cleaning/normalizing the data.

      Just like the general field ``clean()`` method, above, this method
      should return the cleaned data, regardless of whether it changed
      anything or not.

    * The Form subclass's ``clean()`` method. This method can perform
      any validation that requires access to multiple fields from the form at
      once. This is where you might put in things to check that if field ``A``
      is supplied, field ``B`` must contain a valid e-mail address and the
      like. The data that this method returns is the final ``cleaned_data``
      attribute for the form, so don't forget to return the full list of
      cleaned data if you override this method (by default, ``Form.clean()``
      just returns ``self.cleaned_data``).

      Note that any errors raised by your ``Form.clean()`` override will not
      be associated with any field in particular. They go into a special
      "field" (called ``__all__``), which you can access via the
      ``non_field_errors()`` method if you need to. If you want to attach
      errors to a specific field in the form, you will need to access the
      ``_errors`` attribute on the form, which is `described later`_.

These methods are run in the order given above, one field at a time.  That is,
for each field in the form (in the order they are declared in the form
definition), the ``Field.clean()`` method (or its override) is run, then
``clean_<fieldname>()``. Finally, once those two methods are run for every
field, the ``Form.clean()`` method, or its override, is executed.

Examples of each of these methods are provided below.

As mentioned, any of these methods can raise a ``ValidationError``. For any
field, if the ``Field.clean()`` method raises a ``ValidationError``, any
field-specific cleaning method is not called. However, the cleaning methods
for all remaining fields are still executed.

The ``clean()`` method for the ``Form`` class or subclass is always run. If
that method raises a ``ValidationError``, ``cleaned_data`` will be an empty
dictionary.

The previous paragraph means that if you are overriding ``Form.clean()``, you
should iterate through ``self.cleaned_data.items()``, possibly considering the
``_errors`` dictionary attribute on the form as well. In this way, you will
already know which fields have passed their individual validation requirements.

.. _described later:

Form subclasses and modifying field errors
------------------------------------------

Sometimes, in a form's ``clean()`` method, you will want to add an error
message to a particular field in the form. This won't always be appropriate
and the more typical situation is to raise a ``ValidationError`` from
``Form.clean()``, which is turned into a form-wide error that is available
through the ``Form.non_field_errors()`` method.

When you really do need to attach the error to a particular field, you should
store (or amend) a key in the ``Form._errors`` attribute. This attribute is an
instance of a ``django.forms.util.ErrorDict`` class. Essentially, though, it's
just a dictionary. There is a key in the dictionary for each field in the form
that has an error. Each value in the dictionary is a
``django.forms.util.ErrorList`` instance, which is a list that knows how to
display itself in different ways. So you can treat ``_errors`` as a dictionary
mapping field names to lists.

If you want to add a new error to a particular field, you should check whether
the key already exists in ``self._errors`` or not. If not, create a new entry
for the given key, holding an empty ``ErrorList`` instance. In either case,
you can then append your error message to the list for the field name in
question and it will be displayed when the form is displayed.

There is an example of modifying ``self._errors`` in the following section.

.. admonition:: What's in a name?

    You may be wondering why is this attribute called ``_errors`` and not
    ``errors``. Normal Python practice is to prefix a name with an underscore
    if it's not for external usage. In this case, you are subclassing the
    ``Form`` class, so you are essentially writing new internals. In effect,
    you are given permission to access some of the internals of ``Form``.

    Of course, any code outside your form should never access ``_errors``
    directly. The data is available to external code through the ``errors``
    property, which populates ``_errors`` before returning it).

    Another reason is purely historical: the attribute has been called
    ``_errors`` since the early days of the forms module and changing it now
    (particularly since ``errors`` is used for the read-only property name)
    would be inconvenient for a number of reasons. You can use whichever
    explanation makes you feel more comfortable. The result is the same.

Using validation in practice
----------------------------

The previous sections explained how validation works in general for forms.
Since it can sometimes be easier to put things into place by seeing each
feature in use, here are a series of small examples that use each of the
previous features.

Form field default cleaning
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let's firstly create a custom form field that validates its input is a string
containing comma-separated e-mail addresses, with at least one address. We'll
keep it simple and assume e-mail validation is contained in a function called
``is_valid_email()``. The full class looks like this::

    from django import forms

    class MultiEmailField(forms.Field):
        def clean(self, value):
            """
            Check that the field contains one or more comma-separated emails
            and normalizes the data to a list of the email strings.
            """
            if not value:
                raise forms.ValidationError('Enter at least one e-mail address.')
            emails = value.split(',')
            for email in emails:
                if not is_valid_email(email):
                    raise forms.ValidationError('%s is not a valid e-mail address.' % email)

            # Always return the cleaned data.
            return emails

Every form that uses this field will have this ``clean()`` method run before
anything else can be done with the field's data. This is cleaning that is
specific to this type of field, regardless of how it is subsequently used.

Let's create a simple ``ContactForm`` to demonstrate how you'd use this
field::

    class ContactForm(forms.Form):
        subject = forms.CharField(max_length=100)
        message = forms.CharField()
        sender = forms.EmailField()
        recipients = MultiEmailField()
        cc_myself = forms.BooleanField(required=False)

Simply use ``MultiEmailField`` like any other form field. When the
``is_valid()`` method is called on the form, the ``MultiEmailField.clean()``
method will be run as part of the cleaning process.

Cleaning a specific field attribute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Continuing on from the previous example, suppose that in our ``ContactForm``,
we want to make sure that the ``recipients`` field always contains the address
``"fred@example.com"``. This is validation that is specific to our form, so we
don't want to put it into the general ``MultiEmailField`` class. Instead, we
write a cleaning method that operates on the ``recipients`` field, like so::

    class ContactForm(forms.Form):
        # Everything as before.
        ...

        def clean_recipients(self):
            data = self.cleaned_data['recipients']
            if "fred@example.com" not in data:
                raise forms.ValidationError("You have forgotten about Fred!")

            # Always return the cleaned data, whether you have changed it or
            # not.
            return data

Cleaning and validating fields that depend on each other
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suppose we add another requirement to our contact form: if the ``cc_myself``
field is ``True``, the ``subject`` must contain the word ``"help"``. We are
performing validation on more than one field at a time, so the form's
``clean()`` method is a good spot to do this. Notice that we are talking about
the ``clean()`` method on the form here, whereas earlier we were writing a
``clean()`` method on a field. It's important to keep the field and form
difference clear when working out where to validate things. Fields are single
data points, forms are a collection of fields.

By the time the form's ``clean()`` method is called, all the individual field
clean methods will have been run (the previous two sections), so
``self.cleaned_data`` will be populated with any data that has survived so
far. So you also need to remember to allow for the fact that the fields you
are wanting to validate might not have survived the initial individual field
checks.

There are two way to report any errors from this step. Probably the most
common method is to display the error at the top of the form. To create such
an error, you can raise a ``ValidationError`` from the ``clean()`` method. For
example::

    class ContactForm(forms.Form):
        # Everything as before.
        ...

        def clean(self):
            cleaned_data = self.cleaned_data
            cc_myself = cleaned_data.get("cc_myself")
            subject = cleaned_data.get("subject")

            if cc_myself and subject:
                # Only do something if both fields are valid so far.
                if "help" not in subject:
                    raise forms.ValidationError("Did not send for 'help' in "
                            "the subject despite CC'ing yourself.")

            # Always return the full collection of cleaned data.
            return cleaned_data

In this code, if the validation error is raised, the form will display an
error message at the top of the form (normally) describing the problem.

The second approach might involve assigning the error message to one of the
fields. In this case, let's assign an error message to both the "subject" and
"cc_myself" rows in the form display. Be careful when doing this in practice,
since it can lead to confusing form output. We're showing what is possible
here and leaving it up to you and your designers to work out what works
effectively in your particular situation. Our new code (replacing the previous
sample) looks like this::

    class ContactForm(forms.Form):
        # Everything as before.
        ...

        def clean(self):
            cleaned_data = self.cleaned_data
            cc_myself = cleaned_data.get("cc_myself")
            subject = cleaned_data.get("subject")

            if cc_myself and subject and "help" not in subject:
                # We know these are not in self._errors now (see discussion
                # below).
                msg = u"Must put 'help' in subject when cc'ing yourself."
                self._errors["cc_myself"] = self.error_class([msg])
                self._errors["subject"] = self.error_class([msg])

                # These fields are no longer valid. Remove them from the
                # cleaned data.
                del cleaned_data["cc_myself"]
                del cleaned_data["subject"]

            # Always return the full collection of cleaned data.
            return cleaned_data

As you can see, this approach requires a bit more effort, not withstanding the
extra design effort to create a sensible form display. The details are worth
noting, however. Firstly, earlier we mentioned that you might need to check if
the field name keys already exist in the ``_errors`` dictionary. In this case,
since we know the fields exist in ``self.cleaned_data``, they must have been
valid when cleaned as individual fields, so there will be no corresponding
entries in ``_errors``.

Secondly, once we have decided that the combined data in the two fields we are
considering aren't valid, we must remember to remove them from the
``cleaned_data``.

In fact, Django will currently completely wipe out the ``cleaned_data``
dictionary if there are any errors in the form. However, this behaviour may
change in the future, so it's not a bad idea to clean up after yourself in the
first place.
