Zend validators and error messages: addValidator and addErrorMessage

Question

If I have a form element that has multiple validators attached to it (3 in this example), how would I use addErrorMessage to create custom error messages when each unique validator fails. Is there a way to add a custom message for each validator?

$element = new Zend_Form_Element_Text()...
$element->....
        ->addValidator(...)
        ->addValidator(...)
        ->addValidator(...)
        ->addErrorMessage()

Answer 1

Typically it's done per validator error message, not per validator...

$element->setErrorMessages(array(Zend_Validate_...::CONSTANT => 'New Message'));

But I often prefer to override all of an element's errors to a single

$element->setErrorMessages(array('Single Error'));

or, if I need it per validator, this works...

$validator->setMessages('string error')

should override all a validator's errors to a single message. I could not find this documented anywhere, but it works for me. Because of this, it may not work for all versions?

To me, the error messaging handling is a bit messy unless you want to override every possible error message, but hopefully one of these solutions works for you.

Cheers