Zend Form to the Rescue!

A Brief Introduction to Zend_Form

About Me

Jeremy KendallPHP Developer since 2001Organizer Memphis PHP (MemphisPHP.org)Contributor to FRAPI project (getFRAPI.com)

jeremy@jeremykendall.net@JeremyKendallhttp://jeremykendall.net

Forms in General

Ubiquitous

Tedious

Challenging to get right

Security risk

Primary job responsibility

Typical Form Requirements

Collect data

Filter input

Validate input

Display validation messages

Include default data (ex. List of US States)

Pre-populate fields (for edit/update operations)

Should be easy to test

. . . and more.

Typical PHP Form

Tons of markup

Tons of code

Confusing conditionals

Client side validation likely

Server side validation?

Requires two scripts: form & processor

Not at all easy to test

I could go on and on . . .

Zend Form to the Rescue!

Introduced in ZF 1.5, early 2008

Generates markup

Filters and validates user input

Displays validation advice

Object oriented, easily extended

Completely customizable

Can be used apart from ZF MVC

Easy to test

Standard Form Elements

Button

Captcha

Checkbox

File

Hidden

Hash

Image

MultiCheckbox

MultiSelect

Password

Radio

Reset

Select

Text

TextArea

Standard Filter Classes

Alnum

Alpha

Basename

Boolean

HtmlEntities

StringToLower

StringToUpper

StringTrim

And many more . . .

Standard Validation Classes

Alnum

Alpha

Barcode

Between

Callback

CreditCard

Date

DbRecordExists

NoRecordExists

Digits

EmailAddress

File

Float

GreaterThan

Hex

Hostname

Iban

Identical

And many more . . .

Simple Contact Form

Default Markup

Your name . . .

What does it look like?

How about with errors?

Can I use Zend Form by itself?

Standalone - library/base.php