[SalesForce] Displaying error message besides the field responsible for occurrence of error from Apex code

I am trying to display a form that creates multiple Contact records from my Visualforce Page. I don't want to use inputField to achieve the same. The requirement is that if I do not enter LastName and click the Save button, the message should appear just besides the inputText field that I used to fill the LastName.

I cannot submit the form until all fields have been filled.

Right now the error message gets displayed against all the fields, even if I have filled all the fields, except one.

Markup

<apex:page Controller="AddTwoContactsController">
    <apex:form >
        <apex:pageBlock >
        <apex:pageBlockSection columns="1">

            <apex:pageBlockTable value="{!lstContacts}" var="con">
                <apex:column headerValue="Salutation">
                    <apex:inputField value="{!con.Salutation}"/>
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column headerValue="First Name">
                    <apex:inputText value="{!con.FirstName}" required="true"/>
                    <apex:messages />
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column headerValue="Last Name">
                    <apex:inputText value="{!con.LastName}" required="true"/>
                    <apex:messages />
                </apex:column>
            </apex:pageBlockTable>
            </apex:pageBlockSection>

            <apex:pageBlockSection columns="1">
            <apex:pageBlockTable value="{!lstContacts1}" var="con1">
                <apex:column headerValue="Salutation">
                    <apex:inputField value="{!con1.Salutation}"/>
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column headerValue="First Name">
                    <apex:inputText value="{!con1.FirstName}" required="true"/>
                    <apex:messages />
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column headerValue="Last Name">
                    <apex:inputText value="{!con1.LastName}" required="true"/>
                    <apex:messages />
                </apex:column>
            </apex:pageBlockTable>
             </apex:pageBlockSection>
            <apex:pageBlockButtons >

                <apex:commandButton value="Save Contacts" action="{!saveContact}"/>
            </apex:pageBlockButtons>
        </apex:pageBlock>
    </apex:form>
</apex:page>

Controller

public with sharing class AddTwoContactsController {


   // public String con1 { get; set; }

    //public String Contact { get; set; }



    Contact ct = new Contact();
    public List<Contact> lstContacts{ get; set; }
    Contact ct1=new Contact();
    public List<Contact> lstContacts1{ get;set; }

    public AddTwoContactsController ()
    {
        lstContacts=new list<Contact>();
        lstContacts.add(ct);
        lstContacts1=new list<Contact>();
        lstContacts1.add(ct1);
    }
    public PageReference saveContact() {
        for(Integer i=1; i<=lstContacts.size(); i++)
        {
            upsert lstContacts;
        }
        for(Integer j=1; j<=lstContacts1.size(); j++)
        {
            upsert lstContacts1;
        }
        return Page.Allcontactssaved;

    }

The output looks like:

Best Answer

There are many available strategies. Probably the simplest is to use the required attribute:

<apex:inputText value="{!Contact.LastName}" required="true" />

The advantage there is that you do not require any Apex at all. It also works with inputText, whereas other strategies depend on using inputField.

Another option is to make the field required at the database level or use a Validation Rule:

ISBLANK(LastName)

Again, no Apex.

If you want to add an error to a specific field in Apex, you can as follows:

contactRecord.LastName.addError('error message');

Note that this functionality cannot be achieved dynamically.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Displaying error message from Apex Code

You can display error messages using the addError method on sobject or its fields.

Salesforce docs on the sobject instance addError method: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.198.0.apexcode.meta/apexcode/apex_methods_system_sobject.htm#apex_System_SObject_addError

More info on exception handling: http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/An_Introduction_to_Exception_Handling

[SalesForce] Displaying an error on the page (from the controller)

There are several different ways you could do this. The example you gave is one option. I'm not sure the constructor is the best place to be testing data, but...it could work.

You could also (depending on the circumstance) check the data in your getters. You could do some interesting things with this. For instance, if the page you're building allows the user to edit a record's fields, but you've found that there's bad data in one of the fields, you could display an error message specific to that field, and leave the field blank...possibly forcing the user to enter a valid value before saving the record.

<apex:inputText value="{someValueX}"/>
<apex:outputText value="Please enter a proper value for X in the field above" rendered="{!isErrorOnValueX}">

public Boolean isErrorOnValueX = false;
public Boolean isErrorOnValueY = false;

public String getSomeValueX(){
    if(...){
        // if this is bad data, ...
        isErrorOnValueX = true;
        return null;
    } 
    return someValueX;
}

I know from our previous discussion that you ideally wanted to redirect to a new page when some data didn't meet your requirements. You were trying to return a pageReference, or find some other way of redirecting the user to another page from inside the constructor.

If you're preference is still to redirect the user to a new page, you could combine the idea you're describing here -- setting a variable based on whether or not you've found bad data -- and using that variable in a pageReference method that you would call on page load. (I.E., from the apex:page tag's "action" property.)

<apex:page controller="myController" action="{!badDataTest}">

public class myController {

    public Boolean isBadData {get; set;}

    public myController {
        // ...constructor logic here...
        // Also test for bad data. Set isBadData = true if the data is no good; otherwise set to false.
    }

    public pageReference badDataTest(){
        if(isBadData){
            pageReference p = Page.myErrorPage;
            p.setRedirect(true);
            return p;
        }
        return null;
    }

}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Displaying error message from Apex Code

[SalesForce] Displaying an error on the page (from the controller)

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