How do I reset a form including removing all validation errors?

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:

Ljubljana

Only thing that seemed to work for me was manually resetting each form variable (i.e. form.areaCode = ''; and form.phoneNumber = '';). That's how you'd normally do it. – Removable

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();
};

Ljubljana

Note to others, this approach can effectively be summarized as follows: "form.$setPristine() won't clear errors. You have to explicitly set all form controls back to undefined." – Pertinacious

undefined does the trick! Making the field re-validate itself again later-on though, seems impossible, by only accessing the form data. Not sure if I am missing sth... :( I have tried form.Field.$setDirty(true); form.Field.$validate(); form.$setSubmitted(); and it didn't work. – Cerise

Answer 2

      $scope.search = {areaCode: xxxx, phoneNumber: yyyy}

Structure all models in your form in one place like above, so you can clear it like this:

      $scope.search = angular.copy({});

After that you can just call this for reset the validation:

      $scope.search_form.$setPristine();
      $scope.search_form.$setUntouched();
      $scope.search_form.$rollbackViewValue();

Hemangioma

Answer 3

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to reset the $errors in angular. The best way would probably be to reload the current page to start with a new form. Alternatively you have to remove all $error manually with this script:

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

// iterate over all from properties
angular.forEach(form, function(ctrl, name) {
  // ignore angular fields and functions
  if (name.indexOf('$') != 0) {
    // iterate over all $errors for each field        
    angular.forEach(ctrl.$error, function(value, name) {
      // reset validity
      ctrl.$setValidity(name, null);
    });
  }
});
$scope.resetCount++; 

Lumpkin

Answer 4

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

Luana

With this solution you won't see any errors at all, because the Search button is disabled and you can't trigger the search function to show the errors. Another easy way is to check if the input field is dirty: ng-if="searchForm.phoneNumber.$dirty" – Lumpkin

Missed the ng-disabled, my bad, i'll update the code with your suggestion Michael. Thanks for pointing that out. – Luana

I don't want to just hide the validation messages, because as @Lumpkin pointed out, I'm disabling the submit button as long as the form is invalid. I need the form to actually be valid (not just look valid) after reset. – Ljubljana

Answer 5

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.

Percussionist

The answer is perfect, only I want to add one point to it. If you call form_.$setPristine(); and form_.$setUntouched(); in your reset function, then the ng-invalid class will go away, and hence the form fields will not be marked in red – Plucky

this worked for me ng-model-options="{ allowInvalid: true }" this was very helpful. was struggling with this for a while. – Inveterate

Answer 6

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.

Sisera

Answer 7

further to @battmanz 's answer, but without using any ES6 syntax to support older browsers.

 $scope.resetForm = function (form) {

            try {
                var controlNames = Object.keys(form).filter(function (key) { return key.indexOf('$') !== 0 });

                console.log(controlNames);
                for (var x = 0; x < controlNames.length; x++) {
                    form[controlNames[x]].$setViewValue(undefined);
                }

                form.$setPristine();
                form.$setUntouched();
            } catch (e) {                
                console.log('Error in Reset');
                console.log(e);
            }

        };

Downs

Answer 8

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.

Sonia

Answer 9

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();
}

Aultman

Answer 10

So none of the answers were completely working for me. Esp, clearing the view value, so I combined all the answers clearing view value, clearing errors and clearing the selection with j query(provided the fields are input and name same as model name)

 var modelNames = Object.keys($scope.form).filter(key => key.indexOf('$') !== 0);
                    modelNames.forEach(function(name){
                        var model = $scope.form[name];
                        model.$setViewValue(undefined);
                        jq('input[name='+name+']').val('');
                        angular.forEach(model.$error, function(value, name) {
                          // reset validity
                          model.$setValidity(name, null);
                        });
                    });
                    $scope.form.$setPristine();
                    $scope.form.$setUntouched();

Liability