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Validation errors

Customize validation errors format​

next-safe-action, by default, emulates Zod's format method for building both validation and bind args validation errors and return them to the client.

This can be customized both at the safe action client level and at the action level by:

The second way overrides the shape set at the instance level, per action.

For example, if you want to flatten the validation errors (emulation of Zod's flatten method), you can (but not required to) use the flattenValidationErrors utility function exported from the library, combining it with handleValidationErrorsShape inside schema method:

"use server";

import { actionClient } from "@/lib/safe-action";
import {
  flattenValidationErrors,
  flattenBindArgsValidationErrors,
} from "next-safe-action";
import { z } from "zod";

const schema = z.object({
  username: z.string().min(3).max(10),
  password: z.string().min(8).max(100),
});

const bindArgsSchemas = [z.string().uuid()] as const;

export const loginUser = actionClient
  .schema(schema, {
    // Here we use the `flattenValidationErrors` function to customize the returned validation errors
    // object to the client.
    handleValidationErrorsShape: async (ve, utils) => flattenValidationErrors(ve).fieldErrors,
  })
  .bindArgsSchemas(bindArgsSchemas, {
    // Here we use the `flattenBindArgsValidatonErrors` function to customize the returned bind args
    // validation errors object array to the client.
    handleBindArgsValidationErrorsShape: async (ve, utils) => flattenBindArgsValidationErrors(ve),
  })
  .action(async ({ parsedInput: { username, password } }) => {
    // Your code here...
  });

The second argument of both handleValidationErrorsShape and handleBindArgsValidationErrorsShape functions is an utils object that contains info about the current action execution (clientInput, bindArgsClientInputs, metadata and ctx properties). It's passed to the functions to allow granular and dynamic customization of the validation errors shape.

note

If you chain multiple schema methods, as explained in the Extend previous schema page, and want to override the default validation errors shape, you must use handleValidationErrorsShape inside the last schema method, otherwise there would be a type mismatch in the returned action result.

flattenValidationErrors and flattenBindArgsValidationErrors utility functions​

Exported flattenValidationErrors and flattenBindArgsValidationErrors utility functions emulate Zod's flatten method for building validation errors and return them to the client. Be aware that they discard errors for nested fields in objects, but when dealing with simple one-level schemas, it's sometimes better to use the flattened format instead of the formatted one.

So, for instance, a formatted (default) validation errors object like this:

validationErrors = {
  _errors: ["A global error"],
  username: {
    _errors: ["Username format is invalid", "Username is too short"],
  },
  password: {
    _errors: ["Password must be at least 8 characters long"],
  },
};

When passed to flattenValidationErrors, the function will return a flattened version of it:

const flattenedErrors = flattenValidationErrors(validationErrors);

// `flattenedErrors` will be:
flattenedErrors = {
  formErrors: ["A global error"],
  fieldErrors: {
    username: ["Username format is invalid", "Username is too short"],
    password: ["Password must be at least 8 characters long"],
  },
};

flattenBindArgsValidationErrors works the same way, but with bind args (in bindArgsSchemas method), to build the validation errors array.

formatValidationErrors and formatBindArgsValidationErrors utility functions​

These functions emulate Zod's format method for building validation and bind args validation errors and return them to the client. You can use them, for instance, if you set the defaultValidationErrorsShape to flattened in createSafeActionClient and need the formatted shape for a specific action.

Create custom validation errors​

When input data fails schema validation, a validationErrors object is returned to the client. This object contains all the fields that failed validation, and their corresponding error messages.

It's often useful to also define custom logic to set additional validation errors by ourselves, for example when a user is signing up and password/confirm password fields don't match, and/or when the email is already in use.

Let's see how to implement this specific case in the optimal way, using both schema refinements and errors set in action's server code function, thanks to returnValidationErrors.

Schema refinements​

First of all, we must check if the password and confirm password fields match. Using Zod in this example as our validation library, we can utilize .refine or .superRefine at the schema level to do that:

import { z } from "zod";

const schema = z
  .object({
    email: z.string().email(),
    password: z.string().min(8).max(100),
    confirmPassword: z.string().min(8).max(100),
  })
  .refine(({ password, confirmPassword }) => password === confirmPassword, {
    path: ["confirmPassword"],
    message: "Passwords do not match",
  });

If the two fields don't match, a custom validation error will be set for the confirmPassword field. This is the perfect place to make this check, because verifying that two fields are the same should be a schema job.

returnValidationErrors​

When registering a new user, we also need to check if the email is already stored in the database, and if so, inform the user that that address is taken by someone else. The best place to make this check is inside the action's server code function. If we find out that the email is already taken by another user, we can return a custom validation error to the client using returnValidationErrors:

import { returnValidationErrors } from "next-safe-action";
import { actionClient } from "@/lib/safe-action";

// Here we're using the same schema declared above.
const signupAction = actionClient
  .schema(schema)
  .action(async ({ parsedInput: { email } }) => {
    // Assume this is a database call.
    if (!isEmailAvailable(email)) {
      returnValidationErrors(schema, {
        email: {
          _errors: ["Email already registered"],
        },
      });
    }

    ...
  });

Note that:

  • You're required to pass a schema as the first argument of returnValidationErrors. This is used to infer the type of the validation errors set via the second argument.
  • Errors set using returnValidationErrors will not be merged with the schema ones. If schema validation fails, the execution stops before reaching action's server code function. Otherwise, the action's backend code would receive invalid parsed input.
  • returnValidationErrors returns never. This means that internally it throws an error that gets caught and processed by next-safe-action, so code declared below the returnValidationErrors invocation will not be executed.
  • Since it returns never, you don't need to use return before this function call, and you can call it only once per execution path (it works the same way as Next.js redirect and notFound functions).