Description

WebWork adds support for client-side validation on top of XWork's standard validation framework. It can be enabled on a per-form basis by specifying validate="true" in the form tag:

<ww:form name="test" action="javascriptValidation" validate="true">
  ...
</ww:form>
A name for the form can be supplied, else the action name will be used as the form name.

A correct action and namespace attributes must be provided to the <ww:form> tag. For example, the Action named "submitProfile" is used in the "/user" namespace, the following must be used.

<ww:form namespace="/user" action="submitProfile" validate="true">
  ...
</ww:form>

While the following will "work" in the sense that the form will function correctly, client-side validation will not. That is because WebWork must know the exact namespace and action (rather than a URL) to properly support validation.

<ww:form action="/user/submitProfile.action" validate="true">
  ...
</ww:form>

All the standard validation configuration steps still apply. Client-side validation uses the same validation rules as server-side validation. If server-side validation doesn't work, then client-side validation won't work either.

Note that the required attribute on many WebWork Tags has nothing to do with client-side validation. It is just used by certain theme (like xhtml) to put a '*' on the field marked as required.

Client Side Validation Types

There are two styles of client side validation: