How to Translate Validation Constraint Messages

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 2.7, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 6.0 (the current stable version).

How to Translate Validation Constraint Messages

If you're using validation constraints with the Form component, then translating the error messages is easy: simply create a translation resource for the validators domain.

To start, suppose you've created a plain-old-PHP object that you need to use somewhere in your application:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
        // src/AppBundle/Entity/Author.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;

class Author
{
    public $name;
}
    

Add constraints through any of the supported methods. Set the message option to the translation source text. For example, to guarantee that the $name property is not empty, add the following:

Annotations
YAML
XML
PHP

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
        // src/AppBundle/Entity/Author.php
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

class Author
{
    /**
     * @Assert\NotBlank(message="author.name.not_blank")
     */
    public $name;
}
    

        1
2
3
4
5
        # src/AppBundle/Resources/config/validation.yml
AppBundle\Entity\Author:
    properties:
        name:
            - NotBlank: { message: 'author.name.not_blank' }
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
        <!-- src/AppBundle/Resources/config/validation.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<constraint-mapping xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd">

    <class name="AppBundle\Entity\Author">
        <property name="name">
            <constraint name="NotBlank">
                <option name="message">author.name.not_blank</option>
            </constraint>
        </property>
    </class>
</constraint-mapping>
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
        // src/AppBundle/Entity/Author.php

// ...
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\NotBlank;

class Author
{
    public $name;

    public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
    {
        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('name', new NotBlank(array(
            'message' => 'author.name.not_blank',
        )));
    }
}
    

Now, create a validators catalog file in the app/Resources/translations directory:

XML
YAML
PHP

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
        <!-- app/Resources/translations/validators.en.xlf -->
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xliff version="1.2" xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
    <file source-language="en" datatype="plaintext" original="file.ext">
        <body>
            <trans-unit id="author.name.not_blank">
                <source>author.name.not_blank</source>
                <target>Please enter an author name.</target>
            </trans-unit>
        </body>
    </file>
</xliff>
    

        1
2
        # app/Resources/translations/validators.en.yml
author.name.not_blank: Please enter an author name.
    

        1
2
3
4
        // app/Resources/translations/validators.en.php
return array(
    'author.name.not_blank' => 'Please enter an author name.',
);
    

You may need to clear your cache (even in the dev environment) after creating this file for the first time.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.

How to Translate Validation Constraint Messages

How to Translate Validation Constraint Messages

What is Symfony?

Learn Symfony

Screencasts

Community

Blog

Services

Deployed on