CodeIgniter custom validation errors for each rule per each field

Question

I'm using CodeIngiter 2.1 and I wanna define custom validation errors for each rule per each field. The fields are as follows.

array(
'field' => 'firstname',
'rules' => 'required',
    'error' => 'This field cannot be empty.'
),
array(
'field' => 'email',
'rules' => 'required',
    'error' => 'The email cannot be empty.'
)

But In CodeIgniter only one error message is defined for one rule. So how to override that one and Please suggest some solutions for getting different errors for perticular field. The work is more appreciated.

Answer 1

Try using the CI function :

   set_message();

All of the native error messages are located in the following language file:

   language/english/form_validation_lang.php

To set your own custom message you can either edit that file, or use the following function:

   $this->form_validation->set_message('rule', 'Error Message');

for more about set_message here

Hope it will help;

Answer 2

I recently made this custom error message option for my codeigniter 3.0-dev applicaiton. Hope this helps anyone out there.

https://gist.github.com/abdmaster/7287962

To use it (example),

$this->form_validation->set_rules('name','Name','required|alpha',array('required' => 'Please fill the field %s .');`

It will work with Base models like jamierumbelow's MY_Model. In your model, you do something like this:

public $validate = array(
  'display_name'  => array(
    'field' => 'display_name',
    'label' => 'Display Name',
    'rules' => 'trim|required|xss_clean|valid_fullname|is_unique[users_model.display_name]',
    'error_msg' => array(
      'is_unique'  => 'The name in %s is already being used by someone.',
    ),
  ),
);

Rest are how we are use normally. Hope these examples are enough.

I haven't tried in v2.1.x but hopefully this will work. Maybe have to do some minor adjustments.