How do I reset a form including removing all valid

Question

I have an Angular form. The fields are validated using the ng-pattern attribute. I also have a reset button. I'm using the Ui.Utils Event Binder to handle the reset event like so:

<form name="searchForm" id="searchForm" ui-event="{reset: 'reset(searchForm)'}" ng-submit="search()">
  <div>
    <label>
      Area Code
      <input type="tel" name="areaCode" ng-model="areaCode" ng-pattern="/^([0-9]{3})?$/">
    </label>

    <div ng-messages="searchForm.areaCode.$error">
      <div class="error" ng-message="pattern">The area code must be three digits</div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div>
    <label>
      Phone Number
      <input type="tel" name="phoneNumber" ng-model="phoneNumber" ng-pattern="/^([0-9]{7})?$/">
    </label>

    <div ng-messages="searchForm.phoneNumber.$error">
      <div class="error" ng-message="pattern">The phone number must be seven digits</div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <br>
  <div>
    <button type="reset">Reset</button>
    <button type="submit" ng-disabled="searchForm.$invalid">Search</button>
  </div>
</form>

As you can see, when the form is reset it calls the reset method on the $scope. Here's what the entire controller looks like:

angular.module('app').controller('mainController', function($scope) {
    $scope.resetCount = 0;

    $scope.reset = function(form) {
        form.$setPristine();
        form.$setUntouched();
        $scope.resetCount++;
    };

    $scope.search = function() {
        alert('Searching');
    };
});

I'm calling form.$setPristine() and form.$setUntouched, following the advice from another question here on Stack Overflow. The only reason I added the counter was to prove that the code is being called (which it is).

The problem is that even after reseting the form, the validation messages don't go away. You can see the full code on Plunker. Here's a screenshot showing that the errors don't go away:

Answer 1

I started with the comment from @Brett and built upon it. I actually have multiple forms and each form has many fields (more than just the two shown). So I wanted a general solution.

I noticed that the Angular form object has a property for each control (input, select, textarea, etc) as well as some other Angular properties. Each of the Angular properties, though, begins with a dollar sign ($). So I ended up doing this (including the comment for the benefit of other programmers):

$scope.reset = function(form) {
    // Each control (input, select, textarea, etc) gets added as a property of the form.
    // The form has other built-in properties as well. However it's easy to filter those out,
    // because the Angular team has chosen to prefix each one with a dollar sign.
    // So, we just avoid those properties that begin with a dollar sign.
    let controlNames = Object.keys(form).filter(key => key.indexOf('$') !== 0);

    // Set each control back to undefined. This is the only way to clear validation messages.
    // Calling `form.$setPristine()` won't do it (even though you wish it would).
    for (let name of controlNames) {
        let control = form[name];
        control.$setViewValue(undefined);
    }

    form.$setPristine();
    form.$setUntouched();
};

Answer 2

I had the same problem and tried to do battmanz solution (accepted answer).

I'm pretty sure his answer is really good, but however for me it wasn't working.

I am using ng-model to bind data, and angular material library for the inputs and ng-message directives for error message , so maybe what I will say will be useful only for people using the same configuration.

I took a lot of look at the formController object in javascript, in fact there is a lot of $ angular function as battmanz noted, and there is in addition, your fields names, which are object with some functions in its fields.

So what is clearing your form ?

Usually I see a form as a json object, and all the fields are binded to a key of this json object.

//lets call here this json vm.form
vm.form = {};

//you should have something as ng-model = "vm.form.name" in your view

So at first to clear the form I just did callback of submiting form :

vm.form = {};

And as explained in this question, ng-messages won't disappear with that, that's really bad.

When I used battmanz solution as he wrote it, the messages didn't appear anymore, but the fields were not empty anymore after submiting, even if I wrote

vm.form = {};

And I found out it was normal, because using his solution actually remove the model binding from the form, because it sets all the fields to undefined. So the text was still in the view because somehow there wan't any binding anymore and it decided to stay in the HTML.

So what did I do ?

Actually I just clear the field (setting the binding to {}), and used just

form.$setPristine();
form.$setUntouched();

Actually it seems logical, since the binding is still here, the values in the form are now empty, and angular ng-messages directive is triggering only if the form is not untouched, so I think it's normal after all.

Final (very simple) code is that :

function reset(form) {
        form.$setPristine();
        form.$setUntouched();
};

A big problem I encountered with that :

Only once, the callback seems to have fucked up somewhere, and somehow the fields weren't empty (it was like I didn't click on the submit button).

When I clicked again, the date sent was empty. That even more weird because my submit button is supposed to be disabled when a required field is not filled with the good pattern, and empty is certainly not a good one.

I don't know if my way of doing is the best or even correct, if you have any critic/suggestion or any though about the problem I encountered, please let me know, I always love to step up in angularJS.

Hope this will help someone and sorry for the bad english.

Answer 3

You can pass your loginForm object into the function ng-click="userCtrl.login(loginForm) and in the function call

this.login = function (loginForm){
  loginForm.$setPristine();
  loginForm.$setUntouched();
}

Answer 4

Following worked for me

let form = this.$scope.myForm;   
let controlNames = Object.keys(form).filter(key => key.indexOf('$') !== 0);
for (let name of controlNames) {
    let control = form [name];
    control.$error = {};
}

In Short: to get rid of ng-messages errors you need to clear out the $error object for each form item.

Answer 5

You can add a validation flag and show or hide errors according to its value with ng-if or ng-show in your HTML. The form has a $valid flag you can send to your controller.

ng-if will remove or recreate the element to the DOM, while ng-show will add it but won't show it (depending on the flag value).

EDIT: As pointed by Michael, if form is disabled, the way I pointed won't work because the form is never submitted. Updated the code accordingly.

HTML

<form name="searchForm" id="searchForm" ui-event="{reset: 'reset(searchForm)'}" ng-submit="search()">
  <div>
    <label>
      Area Code
      <input type="tel" name="areaCode" ng-model="areaCode" ng-pattern="/^([0-9]{3})?$/">
    </label>

    <div ng-messages="searchForm.areaCode.$error">
      <div class="error" ng-message="pattern" ng-if="searchForm.areaCode.$dirty">The area code must be three digits</div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div>
    <label>
      Phone Number
      <input type="tel" name="phoneNumber" ng-model="phoneNumber" ng-pattern="/^([0-9]{7})?$/">
    </label>

    <div ng-messages="searchForm.phoneNumber.$error">
      <div class="error" ng-message="pattern" ng-if="searchForm.phoneNumber.$dirty">The phone number must be seven digits</div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <br>
  <div>
    <button type="reset">Reset</button>
    <button type="submit" ng-disabled="searchForm.$invalid">Search</button>
  </div>
</form>

JS

$scope.search = function() {
    alert('Searching');
};

$scope.reset = function(form) {
     form.$setPristine();
     form.$setUntouched();
     $scope.resetCount++;
 };

Codepen with working solution: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/zGPZoB

Answer 6

It looks like I got to do the right behavior at reset. Unfortunately, using the standard reset failed. I also do not include the library ui-event. So my code is a little different from yours, but it does what you need.

<form name="searchForm" id="searchForm" ng-submit="search()">
  pristine = {{searchForm.$pristine}} valid ={{searchForm.$valid}}
  <div>
    <label>
      Area Code
      <input type="tel" required name="areaCode" ng-model="obj.areaCode" ng-pattern="/^([0-9]{3})?$/" ng-model-options="{ allowInvalid: true }">
    </label>

    <div ng-messages="searchForm.areaCode.$error">
      <div class="error" ng-message="pattern">The area code must be three digits</div>
      <div class="error" ng-message="required">The area code is required</div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div>
    <label>
      Phone Number
      <input type="tel" required name="phoneNumber" ng-model="obj.phoneNumber" ng-pattern="/^([0-9]{7})?$/" ng-model-options="{ allowInvalid: true }">
    </label>

    <div ng-messages="searchForm.phoneNumber.$error">
      <div class="error" ng-message="pattern">The phone number must be seven digits</div>
      <div class="error" ng-message="required">The phone number is required</div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <br>
  <div>
    <button ng-click="reset(searchForm)" type="reset">Reset</button>
    <button type="submit" ng-disabled="searchForm.$invalid">Search</button>
  </div>
</form>

And JS:

$scope.resetCount = 0;
$scope.obj = {};
$scope.reset = function(form_) {
  $scope.resetCount++;
  $scope.obj = {};
  form_.$setPristine();
  form_.$setUntouched();
  console.log($scope.resetCount);
};

$scope.search = function() {
  alert('Searching');
};

Live example on jsfiddle.

Note the directive ng-model-options="{allowinvalid: true}". Use it necessarily, or until the entry field will not be valid, the model value is not recorded. Therefore, the reset will not operate.

P.S. Put value (areaCode, phoneNumber) on the object simplifies purification.