angular-cn/aio/content/guide/form-validation.md

# Form Validation




Improve overall data quality by validating user input for accuracy and completeness.

This page shows how to validate user input in the UI and display useful validation messages
using both reactive and template-driven forms. It assumes some basic knowledge of the two 
forms modules.

<div class="l-sub-section">

If you're new to forms, start by reviewing the [Forms](guide/forms) and 
[Reactive Forms](guide/reactive-forms) guides.

</div>


{@a live-example}


**Try the live example to see and download the full cookbook source code.**

<live-example name="form-validation" embedded=true img="guide/form-validation/plunker.png">

</live-example>

## Template-driven validation

To add validation to a template-driven form, you add the same validation attributes as you 
would with [native HTML form validation](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/HTML5/Constraint_validation). 
Angular uses directives to match these attributes with validator functions in the framework.

Every time the value of a form control changes, Angular will run validation and generate 
either a list of validation errors (which results in an INVALID status) or null (which 
results in a VALID status).

You can then inspect the control's state by exporting `ngModel` to a local template variable.
In the example below, it's exported into a variable called `name`:

<code-example path="form-validation/src/app/template/hero-form-template.component.html" region="name-with-error-msg" title="template/hero-form-template.component.html (name)" linenums="false">

</code-example>


Note the following:

* The `<input>` element carries the HTML validation attributes: `required` and `minlength`. It 
also carries a custom validator directive, `forbiddenName` (more on that [later](guide/form-validation#custom-validator)).

* The `NgModel` directive has been exported into a local template variable called `name` 
by setting `#name="ngModel"`. `NgModel` mirrors many of the properties of its underlying 
`FormControl` instance, so you can use this in the template to check for control states 
such as `valid` and `dirty`. For a full list of control properties, see the [AbstractControl](api/forms/AbstractControl) 
API reference.

* The `*ngIf` on the `<div>` element reveals a set of nested message `divs`
but only if the `name` is invalid and the control is either `dirty` or `touched`.

* Each nested `<div>` can present a custom message for one of the possible validation errors.
There are messages for `required`, `minlength`, and `forbiddenName`.
 

{@a why-check}


<div class="l-sub-section">



#### Why check _dirty_ and _touched_?

You may not want your application to display errors before the user has a chance to edit the form.
The checks for `dirty` and `touched` prevent errors from showing until the user changes the value 
(turning the control dirty) or blurs the form control element (setting the control to touched).

</div>

<div class="l-sub-section">

Check out the [live example](guide/form-validation#live-example) for the full template-driven component.

</div>

{@a reactive}

## Reactive form validation

In a reactive form, the source of truth is the component class. Instead of adding validators 
through attributes in the template, you add validator functions directly to the form control 
model in the component class. These functions are then called whenever the value of the 
control changes.

### Validator functions

There are two types of validator functions: sync validators and async validators.  

* **Sync validators**: functions that take a control instance and immediately return either a 
a set of validation errors or `null`. These can be passed in as the second argument when 
you instantiate a `FormControl`.

* **Async validators**: functions that take a control instance and return a Promise 
or Observable that later emits a set of validation errors or `null`. These can be passed 
in as the third argument when you instantiate a `FormControl`. 

Note: for performance reasons, async validators are only run if all sync validators pass. Each 
must complete before errors are set.

### Built-in validators

You can choose to [write your own validator functions](guide/form-validation#custom-validator), or you can use some of our built-in 
validators. 

The same built-in validators that were available as attributes in template-driven forms - 
`required`, `minlength`, etc - are all available to use as functions from the 
`Validators` class.  For a full list of built-in validators, see the [Validators](api/forms/Validators) 
API reference.

If our hero form is updated to be a reactive form, we'll want to use some of the same 
built-in validators (this time, in function form). See below:

{@a reactive-component-class}

<code-example path="form-validation/src/app/reactive/hero-form-reactive.component.ts" region="form-group" title="reactive/hero-form-reactive.component.ts (validator functions)" linenums="false">
</code-example>

Note that:

* The name control sets up two built-in validators - `Validators.required` and `Validators.minLength(4)` - and 
one custom validator, `forbiddenNameValidator` (more on that [later](guide/form-validation#custom-validator)).
* As these validators are all sync validators, they are passed in as the second argument. 
* Multiple validators are supported by passing the functions in as an array.
* A few getter methods have been added. In a reactive form, you can always access any form control 
through the `get` method on its parent group, but sometimes it's useful to define getters as shorthands 
for the template.

{@a reactive-component-template}

If you look at the template for the name input again, it is fairly similar to the template-driven example. 

<code-example path="form-validation/src/app/reactive/hero-form-reactive.component.html" region="name-with-error-msg" title="reactive/hero-form-reactive.component.html (name with error msg)" linenums="false">
</code-example>

Key takeaways:
 
 * The form no longer exports any directives, and instead uses the `name` getter defined in 
 the component class.
 * The `required` attribute is still present. While it's not necessary for validation purposes, 
 you may want to keep it in your template for CSS styling or accessibility reasons.

<div class="l-sub-section">

Run the [live example](guide/form-validation#live-example) to see the full reactive form component.

</div>


{@a custom-validator}

## Custom validators

The built-in validators won't always match the exact use case of your application. Sometimes you'll want to 
create a custom validator. 

You may remember the `forbiddenNameValidator` function from the examples above. Here's what the definition of 
that function looks like:

<code-example path="form-validation/src/app/shared/forbidden-name.directive.ts" region="custom-validator" title="shared/forbidden-name.directive.ts (forbiddenNameValidator)" linenums="false">
</code-example>

The function is actually a factory that takes a regular expression to detect a _specific_ forbidden name
and returns a validator function.

In this sample, the forbidden name is "bob", so the validator will reject any hero name containing "bob".
Elsewhere it could reject "alice" or any name that the configuring regular expression matches.

The `forbiddenNameValidator` factory returns the configured validator function.
That function takes an Angular control object and returns _either_
null if the control value is valid _or_ a validation error object.
The validation error object typically has a property whose name is the validation key, `'forbiddenName'`,
and whose value is an arbitrary dictionary of values that you could insert into an error message (`{name}`).

### Adding to reactive forms

In reactive forms, custom validators are fairly simple to add. All you have to do is pass the function directly 
to the `FormControl`.

<code-example path="form-validation/src/app/reactive/hero-form-reactive.component.ts" region="custom-validator" title="reactive/hero-form-reactive.component.ts (validator functions)" linenums="false">
</code-example>

### Adding to template-driven forms

In template-driven forms, you don't have direct access to the `FormControl` instance, so you can't pass the 
validator in that way. Instead, you'll want to add a directive to the template.   

The corresponding `ForbiddenValidatorDirective` is a wrapper around the `forbiddenNameValidator`.

Angular recognizes the directive's role in the validation process because the directive registers itself
with the `NG_VALIDATORS` provider, a provider with an extensible collection of validators.

<code-example path="form-validation/src/app/shared/forbidden-name.directive.ts" region="directive-providers" title="shared/forbidden-name.directive.ts (providers)" linenums="false">
</code-example>

The directive class then implements the `Validator` interface, so that it can easily integrate 
with Angular forms. Here is the rest of the directive to help you get an idea of how it all 
comes together:

<code-example path="form-validation/src/app/shared/forbidden-name.directive.ts" region="directive" title="shared/forbidden-name.directive.ts (directive)">
</code-example>

Once the `ForbiddenValidatorDirective` is ready, you can simply add its selector (`forbiddenName`) 
to any input element to activate it. For example:

<code-example path="form-validation/src/app/template/hero-form-template.component.html" region="name-input" title="template/hero-form-template.component.html (forbidden-name-input)" linenums="false">

</code-example>


<div class="l-sub-section">

You may have noticed that the custom validation directive is instantiated with `useExisting`
rather than `useClass`. The registered validator must be _this instance_ of
the `ForbiddenValidatorDirective`&mdash;the instance in the form with
its `forbiddenName` property bound to “bob". If you were to replace
`useExisting` with `useClass`, then you’d be registering a new class instance, one that
doesn’t have a `forbiddenName`.

</div>

## Control status classes

Like in AngularJS, many control properties are automatically mirrored onto the form control 
element as classes. These classes can be used to style form control elements according to 
the state of the form. The following classes are currently supported:

* ng-valid
* ng-invalid
* ng-pending
* ng-pristine
* ng-dirty
* ng-untouched
* ng-touched

In the hero form, the `.ng-valid` and `.ng-invalid` classes are used to set the color of 
each form control's border.

<code-example path="form-validation/src/forms.css" title="forms.css (status classes)">

</code-example>