[sf-perl] Favorite form validation modules?

[Bill Moseley]

I wrote and use Form::Processor.

I have used a number of modules for validation.  Most were about specifying
forms via a config file and rendering HTML markup.  I really like
Rose::HTML::Objects, but found myself customizing it to the point where I
realized I should just start from scratch.

I was less interested in rendering mark up.  That's pretty easy anyway, and
I also need custom markup more often than not so the automatic rendering
never quite worked for me.

I was more interested in the other side -- where the data comes and goes
from the store (mostly database).  So, Form::Processor can work with ORMs,
for example, to automatically populate lookup lists and update many-to-many
relationships.

I also need more than config-based validation parameters.  In
Form::Processor fields and forms are classes.  So adding new custom fields
is easy, and forms can contain methods to do much more complex things than
can be done with config-based forms.  And, of course, forms can inherit from
other forms as can fields.

I was also interested in removing much of the code I felt I was repeating
often in controllers.  For an example see:

http://search.cpan.org/~hank/Catalyst-Plugin-Form-Processor-0.06/lib/Catalyst/Plugin/Form/Processor.pm

There's two or three "model" classes for Form::Processor -- they basically
interface with a specific ORM.  I used Class::DBI quite a bit so that's the
one I wrote.  Gerda Shank wrote one for DBIx::Class.  I'm using a customized
verion of the DBIx::Class one now -- the one Gerda wrote tries to cover more
situations but as a result has some bugs.

Gerda also attempted to rewrite Form::Processor using Moose instead of
Rose::Object.  I could never get it to pass my test suite and didn' t have
time to work on it.  So, Gerda released HTML::FormHandler which is based on
Form::Processor.  I've been meaning to try it with a project some day soon.
I'd recommend trying it.



-- 
Bill Moseley
moseley at hank.org
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