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 ran into the same problem, but I do not want to "pollute" my components with code that handles this. Especially since I need this in many forms and I do not want to repeat the code on various occasions.

Thus I created a directive (using the answers posted so far). The directive decorates NgForm's onSubmit-Method: If the form is invalid it marks all fields as touched and aborts submission. Otherwise the usual onSubmit-Method executes normally.

import {Directive, Host} from '@angular/core';
import {NgForm} from '@angular/forms';

@Directive({
    selector: '[appValidateOnSubmit]'
})
export class ValidateOnSubmitDirective {

    constructor(@Host() form: NgForm) {
        const oldSubmit = form.onSubmit;

        form.onSubmit = function (): boolean {
            if (form.invalid) {
                const controls = form.controls;
                Object.keys(controls).forEach(controlName => controls[controlName].markAsTouched());
                return false;
            }
            return oldSubmit.apply(form, arguments);
        };
    }
}

Usage:

<form (ngSubmit)="submit()" appValidateOnSubmit>
    <!-- ... form controls ... -->
</form>

Answer 2

From Angular 8/9 you can simply use

this.form.markAllAsTouched();

To mark a control and it's descendant controls as touched.

AbstractControl doc

Answer 3

as per @masterwork

typescript code for the angular version 8

private markFormGroupTouched(formGroup: FormGroup) {
    (Object as any).values(formGroup.controls).forEach(control => {
      control.markAsTouched();
      if (control.controls) {
        this.markFormGroupTouched(control);
      }
    });   }

Answer 4

See this gem. So far the most elegant solution I've seen.

Full code

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { FormGroup } from '@angular/forms';

const TOUCHED = 'markAsTouched';
const UNTOUCHED = 'markAsUntouched';
const DIRTY = 'markAsDirty';
const PENDING = 'markAsPending';
const PRISTINE = 'markAsPristine';

const FORM_CONTROL_STATES: Array<string> = [TOUCHED, UNTOUCHED, DIRTY, PENDING, PRISTINE];

@Injectable({
  providedIn: 'root'
})
export class FormStateService {

  markAs (form: FormGroup, state: string): FormGroup {
    if (FORM_CONTROL_STATES.indexOf(state) === -1) {
      return form;
    }

    const controls: Array<string> = Object.keys(form.controls);

    for (const control of controls) {
      form.controls[control][state]();
    }

    return form;
  }

  markAsTouched (form: FormGroup): FormGroup {
    return this.markAs(form, TOUCHED);
  }

  markAsUntouched (form: FormGroup): FormGroup {
    return this.markAs(form, UNTOUCHED);
  }

  markAsDirty (form: FormGroup): FormGroup {
    return this.markAs(form, DIRTY);
  }

  markAsPending (form: FormGroup): FormGroup {
    return this.markAs(form, PENDING);
  }

  markAsPristine (form: FormGroup): FormGroup {
    return this.markAs(form, PRISTINE);
  }
}

Answer 5

The following function recurses through controls in a form group and gently touches them. Because the controls field is an object, the code call Object.values() on the form group's control field.

  /**
   * Marks all controls in a form group as touched
   * @param formGroup - The form group to touch
   */
  private markFormGroupTouched(formGroup: FormGroup) {
    (<any>Object).values(formGroup.controls).forEach(control => {
      control.markAsTouched();

      if (control.controls) {
        this.markFormGroupTouched(control);
      }
    });
  }

Answer 6

From Angular v8, you have this built-in with the help of the markAllAsTouched method.

As an example, you could use it like

form.markAllAsTouched();

See the official doc : https://angular.io/api/forms/AbstractControl#markallastouched