Zend form setRequired(true) or addValidator(NotEmp

Question

Is there any real difference between the behavior or output of these 2. They look to me like they do the same thing.

->addValidator('NotEmpty')   

->setRequired(true)

Answer 1

Yes, there's a difference. If an element is not required, it'll validate even if the whole value is missing from the data you validate against. The value is only validated against registered validators after it's been determined that it exists. NotEmpty validator will only fail if the field is present, but is empty.

Also, it's not necessary to add NotEmpty validator yourself, by default Zend auto inserts NotEmpty validator for elements, if the element is required. So effectively doing ->setRequired(true) is same as doing ->setRequired(true)->addValidator('NotEmpty'). You can turn off this behavior with ->setAutoInsertNotEmptyValidator(false).