How to Translate Validation Constraint Messages

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 4.x, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.3 (the current stable version).

The validation constraints used in forms can translate their error messages by creating a translation resource for the validators translation domain.

First of all, install the Symfony translation component (if it's not already installed in your application) running the following command:

        1
        $ composer require symfony/translation
    

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/Entity/Author.php
namespace App\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:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
        // src/Entity/Author.php
namespace App\Entity;

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

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

        1
2
3
4
5
        # config/validator/validation.yaml
App\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
        <!-- config/validator/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
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd">

    <class name="App\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
18
        // src/Entity/Author.php
namespace App\Entity;

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

class Author
{
    public $name;

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

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

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
        <!-- translations/validators/validators.en.xlf -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<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
        # translations/validators/validators.en.yaml
author.name.not_blank: Please enter an author name.
    

        1
2
3
4
        // translations/validators/validators.en.php
return [
    '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.

TOC

Version