Reactive Forms - mark fields as touched

Question

I am having trouble finding out how to mark all form\'s fields as touched. The main problem is that if I do not touch fields and try to submit form - validation error in not

Answer 1

I completely understand the OP's frustration. I use the following:

Utility function:

/**
 * Determines if the given form is valid by touching its controls 
 * and updating their validity.
 * @param formGroup the container of the controls to be checked
 * @returns {boolean} whether or not the form was invalid.
 */
export function formValid(formGroup: FormGroup): boolean {
  return !Object.keys(formGroup.controls)
    .map(controlName => formGroup.controls[controlName])
    .filter(control => {
      control.markAsTouched();
      control.updateValueAndValidity();
      return !control.valid;
    }).length;
}

Usage:

onSubmit() {
  if (!formValid(this.formGroup)) {
    return;
  }
  // ... TODO: logic if form is valid.
}

Note that this function does not yet cater for nested controls.

Answer 2

View:

<button (click)="Submit(yourFormGroup)">Submit</button>   

API

Submit(form: any) {
  if (form.status === 'INVALID') {
      for (let inner in details.controls) {
           details.get(inner).markAsTouched();
       }
       return false; 
     } 
     // as it return false it breaks js execution and return 

Answer 3

This is the code that I am actually using.

validateAllFormFields(formGroup: any) {
    // This code also works in IE 11
    Object.keys(formGroup.controls).forEach(field => {
        const control = formGroup.get(field);

        if (control instanceof FormControl) {
            control.markAsTouched({ onlySelf: true });
        } else if (control instanceof FormGroup) {               
            this.validateAllFormFields(control);
        } else if (control instanceof FormArray) {  
            this.validateAllFormFields(control);
        }
    });
}    

Answer 4

This code works for me:

markAsRequired(formGroup: FormGroup) {
  if (Reflect.getOwnPropertyDescriptor(formGroup, 'controls')) {
    (<any>Object).values(formGroup.controls).forEach(control => {
      if (control instanceof FormGroup) {
        // FormGroup
        markAsRequired(control);
      }
      // FormControl
      control.markAsTouched();
    });
  }
}

Answer 5

Looping through the form controls and marking them as touched would also work:

for(let i in this.form.controls)
    this.form.controls[i].markAsTouched();

Answer 6

A solution without recursion

For those worried about performance, I've come up with a solution that doesn't use recursion, although it still iterates over all controls in all levels.

 /**
  * Iterates over a FormGroup or FormArray and mark all controls as
  * touched, including its children.
  *
  * @param {(FormGroup | FormArray)} rootControl - Root form
  * group or form array
  * @param {boolean} [visitChildren=true] - Specify whether it should
  * iterate over nested controls
  */
  public markControlsAsTouched(rootControl: FormGroup | FormArray,
    visitChildren: boolean = true) {

    let stack: (FormGroup | FormArray)[] = [];

    // Stack the root FormGroup or FormArray
    if (rootControl &&
      (rootControl instanceof FormGroup || rootControl instanceof FormArray)) {
      stack.push(rootControl);
    }

    while (stack.length > 0) {
      let currentControl = stack.pop();
      (<any>Object).values(currentControl.controls).forEach((control) => {
        // If there are nested forms or formArrays, stack them to visit later
        if (visitChildren &&
            (control instanceof FormGroup || control instanceof FormArray)
           ) {
           stack.push(control);
        } else {
           control.markAsTouched();
        }
      });
    }
  }

This solution works form both FormGroup and also FormArray.

You can play around with it here: angular-mark-as-touched