I use jQuery to alter the exposed form select options. Got error: "An illegal choice has been detected." How to bypass validation?

Question

I have a view that has three expose filters (Manufacturer, Type, Model), three options list (term reference to Printer vocabulary) .

Vocabulary: Printer (3 levels)

-- HP           
---- xxx     
------ xxxx  
-- Apple
---- xxxx
------ xxxxxx
-- Dell
---- xxxx
------- xxxxx
-- ...
-- ...
(thousands of terms)

Since Form API AJAX doesn't work on views expose form, I am unable to make the them dependent select for exposed form fields. So I used jQuery to make the exposed form fields "dependent select / cascading select".

Basically, I empty all the options in views_exposed_form_alter() firstly:

$form['manufacturer_id']['#options'] = $form['type_id']['#options'] = $form['model_id']['#options'] = array();

then populate the option lists with my jQuery code accordingly.

However I get "An illegal choice has been detected." on page load, and form submit. Form submission is prevented due to Drupal form validation mechanism .

It's the form validation detect the options generated by jQuery are not come with the original form data, as I removed the options in form alter. Value of a select box is not present in its defined options .

So I tried to remove form validation in form alter as:

unset($form['#validate']);

still doesn't work, the illegal choice error remains.

============ UPDATED =================

Inspired by @kiamlaluno 's answer below, the only solution I came up is hack/patch the core. Here is what I done:

Edited /includes/form.inc : (line 2014)

I removed the code:

$element['#needs_validation'] = TRUE;

and added:

// if not these fields, mark for validation as usual. 
// so if are these fields, validation will be passed. 

if ($element['#name'] != 'manufacturer_id'  && 
    $element['#name'] != 'type_id'          && 
    $element['#name'] != 'model_id' ) {

  $element['#needs_validation'] = TRUE;
}

It works, the exposed form select option bypassed the validation.

But my solution is very ugly which modified the core.

I wonder if there is any other solution without touching the core? How can I bypass the validation of these exposed form fields?

Thanks!

Answer 1

The function that shows those errors is _form_validate(), which contains the following code.

  // Validate the current input.
  if (!isset($elements['#validated']) || !$elements['#validated']) {
    // The following errors are always shown.
    if (isset($elements['#needs_validation'])) {

      // ...

      if (isset($elements['#options']) && isset($elements['#value'])) {
        if ($elements['#type'] == 'select') {
          $options = form_options_flatten($elements['#options']);
        }
        else {
          $options = $elements['#options'];
        }
        if (is_array($elements['#value'])) {
          $value = in_array($elements['#type'], array('checkboxes', 'tableselect')) ? array_keys($elements['#value']) : $elements['#value'];
          foreach ($value as $v) {
            if (!isset($options[$v])) {
              form_error($elements, $t('An illegal choice has been detected. Please contact the site administrator.'));
              watchdog('form', 'Illegal choice %choice in !name element.', array('%choice' => $v, '!name' => empty($elements['#title']) ? $elements['#parents'][0] : $elements['#title']), WATCHDOG_ERROR);
            }
          }
        }

        // ...
      }

The function is always executed, whenever the form has a validation handler, or not.

You could set $form['#needs_validation'] to FALSE, but _form_builder_handle_input_element() sets it to TRUE. The function is called from form_builder(), which is then called from drupal_process_form(), or drupal_rebuild_form().

  // Mark all posted values for validation.
  if (isset($element['#value']) || (!empty($element['#required']))) {
    $element['#needs_validation'] = TRUE;
  }

After _form_builder_handle_input_element() is called, form_builder() calls any #process function set for the form element.

  // Handle input elements.
  if (!empty($element['#input'])) {
    _form_builder_handle_input_element($form_id, $element, $form_state);
  }
  // Allow for elements to expand to multiple elements, e.g., radios,
  // checkboxes and files.
  if (isset($element['#process']) && !$element['#processed']) {
    foreach ($element['#process'] as $process) {
      $element = $process($element, $form_state, $form_state['complete form']);
    }
    $element['#processed'] = TRUE;
  }

It also calls any #after_build functions set for the form element.

  // The #after_build flag allows any piece of a form to be altered
  // after normal input parsing has been completed.
  if (isset($element['#after_build']) && !isset($element['#after_build_done'])) {
    foreach ($element['#after_build'] as $function) {
      $element = $function($element, $form_state);
    }
    $element['#after_build_done'] = TRUE;
  }

You could set a #after_build function that executes code similar to the following one.

function mymodule_remove_validation($form_element) {
  unset($form_element['#needs_validation']);

  return $form_element;
}

I am using unset($form_element['#needs_validation']) because the if-statement in _form_validate() checks isset($elements['#needs_validation']), instead of !empty($elements['#needs_validation']).

In this way, the form element would not have #needs_validation set to TRUE, and Drupal would not check the returned value for the form element is one of the possible values it can get, nor is the length of a textfield string longer than required.
It doesn't avoid the form validation handlers are run, thought.

Answer 2

You need empty '#options' not in form_alter but in theming function. In this case validation will not display 'illegal choice error'.

First in views_exposed_form_alter() add custom theme function to your selects.

$form['manufacturer_id']['#theme'][] = 'select_empty';
$form['type_id']['#theme'][] = 'select_empty';
$form['model_id']['#theme'][] = 'select_empty';

Then in module or template.php file create new theme function.

function THEME_NAME_theme($existing, $type, $theme, $path) {
  return array(
    'select_empty' => array(
      'render element' => 'element',
     ),
  );
}

function THEME_NAME_select_empty($vars) {
  // Empty select values and add one fake option for correct theming.
  $vars['element']['#options'] = array(
    'All' => t('All'),
  );

  // return default select.
  return theme('select', $vars) 
}

Answer 3

IIRC, it's not possible to disable validation on Form API starting from Drupal 6. Instead of emptying out options in Drupal, you can empty them with jQuery. This way, the options still exist on the Drupal side, and the validation error is not triggered.

Answer 4

The hard part is updated, available colors, change the shape of the filter through AJAX. We can only tell an exposed filter to update its values on the basis of a AJAX UI through it will be great. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible. Actually, it is not possible to expose the filter to provide dynamic values is logical to consider any kind. When it can not change it because you will need to refresh themselves through AJAX? HPE0-Y53 PDF Dumps