degami/php-forms-api

A simple to use Forms API for generating, validating and processing forms in PHP

A Forms API Library for PHP

Important notices

This project is a fork from : https://github.com/darrenmothersele/php-forms-api, _(*1)

The main repository for this code is github. If you have received the file from another location please check this URL for the latest version:, _(*2)

https://github.com/degami/php-forms-api

For bug reports, feature requests, or support requests, please start a case on the GitHub case tracker:, _(*3)

https://github.com/degami/php-forms-api/issues

This library is open source licenses using GPL. See LICENSE.txt for more info., _(*4)

Requirements:, _(*5)

• PHP 7.2
• jQuery UI
• jQuery-mask-plugin ~~( https://github.com/igorescobar/jQuery-Mask-Plugin component is not included as a dependency in composer.json as the packagist.org package info is broken, you need to download the file by yourself )~~
• Google's reCaptcha lib in order to use recaptcha fields ( https://code.google.com/p/recaptcha/downloads/list?q=label:phplib-Latest )
• jQuery nestable plugin in order to use nestable fields ( https://github.com/dbushell/Nestable component , you need to download the file by yourself )

Roadmap

• Finish the Documentation! - you can also use phpdoc to generate a nice one ( phpdoc -d src -t docs --template=clean )
• ~~Finish implementation of options such as disabled, attributes,~~
• ~~Offer a wider range of examples~~
• ~~Complete the javascript functionality for collapsible fieldsets and the password strength meter for password fields.~~
• Complete unit tests.
• ~~AJAX support for field submission and file uploads.~~
• Provide a better default theme and a methodology for defining themes.
• ~~Implement new field types such as button, dates~~
• ~~Add support for masked fields, possibly using a jquery plugin.~~
• ~~Multistep forms~~
• ~~Form builder class (à la drupal_get_form) in order to inject form state during form definition~~
• ~~Support for AJAX form updates ( eg. "add another" button, depending fields, event driven modification of the form elements )~~
• ~~Own namespace~~

Introduction

This Forms API for PHP takes all the hard work out of building, validating, and processing HTML forms in your PHP applications. The Forms API handles all common form elements and validation rules, and it's object-oriented design can be easily expanded with new fields and validation rules., _(*6)

Basic forms workflow

The basic workflow of this forms API is as follows:, _(*7)

• Create new form object
• Add fields to form
• Process form
• Display form

It may not be obvious at first why you process the form before you display the form. This is done because, when using this library, usually the same page (or controller in MVC) will handle the form submissions as well as displaying the form. This is useful because if the form fails validation you are in the right place to display the form again with error messages and prompts to correct mistakes and resubmit the form., _(*8)

Let's look at the steps of the form workflow in more detail:, _(*9)

Create new form object

The form object is the main starting point for using this Forms API. When you create a form you can provide some options in an array to override the default options. By default the form submits back to itself, this is the most useful configuration because you can use the same object to validate and process the submitted form., _(*10)

NB: You can use the default form ID of cs_form if you only have one form, but if you have multiple forms then you must override this value. The form ID is used to generate the HTML ID tag, so must be unique for valid HTML. It is also used in generating the default name of the php function to use when the form is submitted., _(*11)

Add fields to your form

You can add any number of fields to a form, but the only required field is a submit button so that the user can submit the form., _(*12)

You can nest fields inside fieldsets if you want to break up longer forms, or hide advanced options that are not commonly used. Javascript (jQuery) is provided to support collapsible fieldsets., _(*13)

Processing forms

This is what happens when you submit a form for processing:, _(*14)

• Check the incoming request to see if form has been submitted. If this page request is the result of a submission then copy the values from the request into the form.
• Call any alter functions for this form_id.
• Run any field processors defined to run before validation (preprocess).
• Validate the form. If the form was not submitted fail validation without checking anything so the form displays for the first time. If this request was the result of submitting this form run all field validators. If any of the validators fail set error conditions in the form. Then the form's level validate handler is called if it is found.
• If the form was submitted and passed validation run any field processors defined to run after validation (postprocess). Then check if the submit handler is exists as a php function.
• If the submit handler is found it is called, passing in the final form object (which can be used to extract the values).

Display the form

Displaying the form is actually the final step. If there is no form submission found in the request then this is the first time it is displayed and it has been populated with the default values. Alternatively the form may be being displayed as the result of a request that has failed validation. In this case extra information is displayed about the error conditions., _(*15)

A walkthrough of the contact form example

You will find the source code for this example in this file: example/contact.php, _(*16)

Form API reference

Inclusion: Autoload will do the magic :), _(*17)

Usage: Write the definition and submission functions, then get the form object with form_builder::get_form() and render it., _(*18)

Form objects

This example array shows all valid options for form objects, and their default values:, _(*19)

$options = array(
  'form_id' => 'cs_form',
  'action' => '',
  'attributes' => array(),
  'method' => 'post',
  'container_tag' => FORMS_DEFAULT_FORM_CONTAINER_TAG, //set in configuration
  'container_class' => FORMS_DEFAULT_FORM_CONTAINER_CLASS, //set in configuration
  'prefix' => '',
  'suffix' => '',
  'submit' => array(FORM_ID .'_submit'),
  'validate' => array(FORM_ID .'_validate'),
  'inline_errors' => FALSE,
  'ajax_submit_url' => '',
);

fields get a form reference during render , so they can modify the form object state (eg. add the enctype attribute, or js scripts), _(*20)

Field objects

Here are the available fields and their options:, _(*21)

Common

$options = array(
  'title' => '',
  'description' => '',
  'name' => '',
  'id' => '',
  'attributes' => array(),
  'default_value' => '',
  'disabled' => FALSE,
  'stop_on_first_error' => FALSE,
  'tooltip' => FALSE,
  'container_tag' => FORMS_DEFAULT_FIELD_CONTAINER_TAG, //set in configuration
  'container_class' => FORMS_DEFAULT_FIELD_CONTAINER_CLASS, //set in configuration
  'label_class' => FORMS_DEFAULT_FIELD_LABEL_CLASS, //set in configuration
  'container_inherits_classes' => FALSE,
  'required_position' => 'after',
  'prefix' => '',
  'suffix' => '',
  'size' => 60,
  'weight' => 0,
  'validate' => array(),
  'preprocess' => array(),
  'postprocess' => array(),
);

Text fields

$options += array(
  'type' => 'textfield',
);

Autocomplete

$options += array(
  'type' => 'autocomplete',
  'autocomplete_path' => '',
  'options' => array(),
  'min_length' => 3,
);

if options array is defined, it is used as source for the autocomplete widget, otherwise autocomplete_path is used, _(*22)

Spinners

$options += array(
  'type' => 'spinner',
  'min'  => NULL,
  'max'  => NULL,
  'step' => 1,
);

Masked fields

$options += array(
  'type' => 'maskedfield',
  'mask' => '',
);

Password fields

$options += array(
  'type' => 'password',
  'with_confirm' => FALSE,
  'with_strength_check' => FALSE,
  'confirm_string' => 'Confirm password',
);

Text areas

$options += array(
  'type' => 'textarea',
  'rows' => 5,
  'resizable' => FALSE,
);

$options += array(
  'type' => 'tinymce',
  'tinymce_options' => array(),
);

Submit buttons

$options += array(
  'type' => 'submit',
  'js_button' => FALSE,
);

They are always valid., _(*23)

Reset buttons

$options += array(
  'type' => 'reset',
);

They are always valid., _(*24)

Buttons

$options += array(
  'type' => 'button',
  'label' => '',
  'js_button' => FALSE,
);

Image Buttons

$options += array(
  'type' => 'image_button',
  'src' => '',
  'alt' => '',
  'js_button' => FALSE,
);

They are always valid. The value after submit is an array containing fields x,y, _(*25)

Select lists

$options += array(
  'type' => 'select',
  'options' => array(),
  'multiple' => FALSE,
);

Select Menus

$options += array(
  'type' => 'selectmenu',
);

Multi Select

$options += array(
  'type' => 'multiselect',
);

Sliders

$options += array(
  'type' => 'slider',
  'options' => array(),
);

Color Pickers

$options += array(
  'type' => 'colorpicker',
);

Radio buttons

$options += array(
  'type' => 'radios',
  'options' => array(),
);

Checkboxes

$options += array(
  'type' => 'checkboxes',
  'options' => array(),
);

Checkbox

$options += array(
  'type' => 'checkbox',
);

Switchboxes

$options += array(
  'type' => 'switchbox',
  'yes_value' => 1,
  'yes_label' => 'Yes',
  'no_value' => 0,
  'no_label' => 'No',
);

Hidden values

$options += array(
  'type' => 'hidden',
);

OTP (one time passwords)

$options += array(
  'type' => 'otp',
  'otp_length' => 6,
  'otp_type' => 'numeric', // can be numeric, alpha, alpha_numeric
  'show_characters' => false
);

Markup

$options += array(
  'type' => 'markup',
);

Markup values are not passed to the values() function, _(*26)

Progressbar

$options += array(
  'type' => 'progressbar',
  'show_label' => FALSE,
  'indeterminate' => FALSE,
);

Values

$options += array(
  'type' => 'value',
);

Values are passed with the form on submit but are not shown during render. They are always valid., _(*27)

Files

$options += array(
  'type' => 'file',
  'destination' => '',
);

Dates

$options += array(
  'type' => 'date',
  'start_year' => '',
  'end_year' => '',
  'granularity' => 'day', // one of: year, month or day
  'js_selects' => FALSE,
);
$options['default_value'] = array(
  'year'=>'',
  'month'=>'',
  'day'=>'',
);

Date Pickers

$options += array(
  'type' => 'datepicker',
  'date_format' => 'yy-mm-dd',
  'change_month' => FALSE,
  'change_year' => FALSE,
  'mindate' => '-10Y',
  'maxdate' => '+10Y',
  'yearrange' => '-10:+10',
  'disabled_dates' => array(),
);

Times

$options += array(
  'type' => 'time',
  'granularity' => 'seconds', // one of: hours, minutes or seconds
  'js_selects' => FALSE,
);
$options['default_value'] = array(
  'hours'=>'',
  'minutes'=>'',
  'seconds'=>'',
);

DateTimes

$options += array(
  'type' => 'datetime',
  'start_year' => '',
  'end_year' => '',
  'granularity' => 'day - seconds', // one of: year, month, day, hours, minutes or seconds
  'js_selects' => FALSE,
);
$options['default_value'] = array(
  'year'=>'',
  'month'=>'',
  'day'=>'',
  'hours'=>'',
  'minutes'=>'',
  'seconds'=>'',
);

Math captcha

$options += array(
  'type' => 'math_captcha',
  'pre_filled' => FALSE,
);

Image captcha

$options += array(
  'type' => 'image_captcha',
   'out_type' => 'png',
   'characters' => 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789',
   'min_length' => 5,
   'max_length' => 8,
   'image_width' => 100,
   'image_height' => 50,
   'font_size' => 14,
   'pre_filled' => FALSE,
);

Recapthas

$options += array(
  'type' => 'recapcha',
  'publickey' => '',
  'privatekey' => '',
);

be sure you have loaded recaptchalib.php ( https://code.google.com/p/recaptcha/downloads/list?q=label:phplib-Latest ), _(*28)

Tag containers

$options += array(
  'type' => 'tag_container',
  'tag' => 'div',
);

Table containers

$options += array(
  'type' => 'table_container',
  'table_header' => array(),        // an array of column headers
  'col_row_attributes' => array(),  // a matrix of cells attributes ( each one can be a string or an array )
);

Field sets

$options += array(
  'type' => 'fieldset',
);

Tabs

$options += array(
  'type' => 'tabs',
);

Accordions

$options += array(
  'type' => 'accordion',
);

Sortables

$options += array(
  'type' => 'sortable',
  'handle_position' => 'left',
);

$options += array(
  'type' => 'sortable_table',
  'handle_position' => 'left',
  'table_header' => array(),
);

Nestables

$options += array(
  'type' => 'nestable',
);

Repeatables

$options += array(
  'type' => 'repeatable',
  'num_reps' => 1,
);

Geolocation (latitude, longitude)

$options += array(
  'type' => 'geolocation',
);
$options['default_value'] = array(
  'latitude' => NULL,
  'longitude' => NULL,
);

$options += array(
  'type' => 'gmaplocation',
  'zoom' => 8,
  'scrollwheel' => FALSE,
  'mapwidth' => '100%',
  'mapheight' => '500px',
  'markertitle' => NULL,
  'maptype' => 'google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP',
  'with_geocode' => FALSE,
  'lat_lon_type' => 'hidden',
  'geocode_box' => NULL,
  'with_map' => TRUE,
);
$options['default_value'] = array(
  'latitude' => NULL,
  'longitude' => NULL,
  'geocodebox' => NULL,
);

Validators reference

Required, Max Length, Min Length, Exact Length, Regular Expression, Alpha, Alpha-numeric, Alpha-numeric with dashes, Numeric, Integer, Field matching, Email, File extension, File not exists, File max size, File type., _(*29)

Processors reference

For security reasons, all user submitted data should be filtered before use. This Forms API library helps you by providing some useful filtering tools that will process submitted input. You can use these in your submit functions as and when you need them, or you can have them run automatically during forms processing. You can specify processors to run on a field before or after the field is passed for validation., _(*30)

Plain, Trim, LTrim, RTrim, XSS, XSS Weak, Addslashes, _(*31)

Form_builder

Will be the new way to get form objects. Like drupal_get_form, it will pass a form_state argument to the form definition function., _(*32)