---
title: Abide
description: Abide is a form validation library that extends the HTML5 validation API with custom validators.
sass: scss/forms/_error.scss
js: js/foundation.abide.js
video: '4bN0qr5pxjs'
tags:
- forms
- validation
---
## Abide Demo
These input types create a text field: `text`, `date`, `datetime`, `datetime-local`, `email`, `month`, `number`, `password`, `search`, `tel`, `time`, `url` and `week`. Note the use of the novalidate attribute to disable any browser validation that could conflict with Abide.
---
### Form Errors
Abide automatically detects Form Errors of an input by their class (`.form-error` by default, see the `formErrorSelector` option) when they are siblings of the input or inside the same parent.
When the Form Errors cannot be placed next to its field, like in an Input Group, the relation can be declared with `[data-form-error-for]` attribute.
```html_example
```
## Initial State
```html
```
## Error State
```html
```
---
## Ignored Inputs
```html
```
## Event Listener
Setup event listener after foundation is initialized (especially for formvalid/forminvalid). Easier to chain via document selector.
* valid.zf.abide and invalid.zf.abide are field level events, triggered in validateInput function
* ev.target is the DOM field element,
* elem is jQuery selector for field element
* formvalid.zf.abide and forminvalid.zf.abide are form events, triggered in validateForm function
* ev.target is the DOM form element,
* frm is jQuery selector for form element
```javascript
$(document)
// field element is invalid
.on("invalid.zf.abide", function(ev,elem) {
console.log("Field id "+ev.target.id+" is invalid");
})
// field element is valid
.on("valid.zf.abide", function(ev,elem) {
console.log("Field name "+elem.attr('name')+" is valid");
})
// form validation failed
.on("forminvalid.zf.abide", function(ev,frm) {
console.log("Form id "+ev.target.id+" is invalid");
})
// form validation passed, form will submit if submit event not returned false
.on("formvalid.zf.abide", function(ev,frm) {
console.log("Form id "+frm.attr('id')+" is valid");
// ajax post form
})
// to prevent form from submitting upon successful validation
.on("submit", function(ev) {
ev.preventDefault();
console.log("Submit for form id "+ev.target.id+" intercepted");
});
// You can bind field or form event selectively
$("#foo").on("invalid.zf.abide", function(ev,el) {
alert("Input field foo is invalid");
});
$("#bar").on("formvalid.zf.abide", function(ev,frm) {
alert("Form is valid, finally!");
// do something perhaps
});
```
## Builtin Patterns and Validators
The following patterns and validators are already built in:
`alpha`,
`alpha_numeric`,
`card`,
`color`
`cvv`,
`date`,
`dateISO`,
`datetime`,
`day_month_year`,
`domain`,
`email`,
`integer`,
`month_day_year`,
`number`,
`time`,
`url`
Apart from these standard patterns, we have a `website` pattern too which is basically a combo of both `domain` and `url` pattern and we recommend you to use this `website` pattern for validating websites.
They are defined by regular expressions as you can see below. Note, that the patterns that relate to text such as `alpha` and `alpha_numeric` do not consider special characters from other languages. You need to add these special characters yourself to the regular expressions. For instance, for the German language you need to add:
```JS
alpha : /^[a-zäöüßA-ZÄÖÜ]+$/,
alpha_numeric : /^[a-zäöüßA-ZÄÖÜ0-9]+$/,
```
Then you need to customize the builtin patterns as explained in the next section. Otherwise Abide will produce an error if a special character is input in your text field which is validated with `pattern="alpha"` or `pattern="alpha_numeric"`.
Here are the definitions of the builtin patterns:
```JS
alpha : /^[a-zA-Z]+$/,
alpha_numeric : /^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/,
integer : /^[-+]?\d+$/,
number : /^[-+]?\d*(?:[\.\,]\d+)?$/,
// amex, visa, diners
card : /^(?:4[0-9]{12}(?:[0-9]{3})?|5[1-5][0-9]{14}|6(?:011|5[0-9][0-9])[0-9]{12}|3[47][0-9]{13}|3(?:0[0-5]|[68][0-9])[0-9]{11}|(?:2131|1800|35\d{3})\d{11})$/,
cvv : /^([0-9]){3,4}$/,
// http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/states-of-the-type-attribute.html#valid-e-mail-address
email : /^[a-zA-Z0-9.!#$%&'*+\/=?^_`{|}~-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?(?:\.[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?)+$/,
// From CommonRegexJS (@talyssonoc)
// https://github.com/talyssonoc/CommonRegexJS/blob/e2901b9f57222bc14069dc8f0598d5f412555411/lib/commonregex.js#L76
// For more restrictive URL Regexs, see https://mathiasbynens.be/demo/url-regex.
url: /^((?:(https?|ftps?|file|ssh|sftp):\/\/|www\d{0,3}[.]|[a-z0-9.\-]+[.][a-z]{2,4}\/)(?:[^\s()<>]+|\((?:[^\s()<>]+|(?:\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\))+(?:\((?:[^\s()<>]+|(?:\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\)|[^\s`!()\[\]{};:\'".,<>?\xab\xbb\u201c\u201d\u2018\u2019]))$/,
// abc.de
domain : /^([a-zA-Z0-9]([a-zA-Z0-9\-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,8}$/,
datetime : /^([0-2][0-9]{3})\-([0-1][0-9])\-([0-3][0-9])T([0-5][0-9])\:([0-5][0-9])\:([0-5][0-9])(Z|([\-\+]([0-1][0-9])\:00))$/,
// YYYY-MM-DD
date : /(?:19|20)[0-9]{2}-(?:(?:0[1-9]|1[0-2])-(?:0[1-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-9])|(?:(?!02)(?:0[1-9]|1[0-2])-(?:30))|(?:(?:0[13578]|1[02])-31))$/,
// HH:MM:SS
time : /^(0[0-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-3])(:[0-5][0-9]){2}$/,
dateISO : /^\d{4}[\/\-]\d{1,2}[\/\-]\d{1,2}$/,
// MM/DD/YYYY
month_day_year : /^(0[1-9]|1[012])[- \/.](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[- \/.]\d{4}$/,
// DD/MM/YYYY
day_month_year : /^(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[- \/.](0[1-9]|1[012])[- \/.]\d{4}$/,
// #FFF or #FFFFFF
color : /^#?([a-fA-F0-9]{6}|[a-fA-F0-9]{3})$/,
// Domain || URL
website: {
test: (text) => {
return Abide.defaults.patterns['domain'].test(text) || Abide.defaults.patterns['url'].test(text);
}
}
```
## Adding Custom Pattern and Validator
* Override builtin patterns and validators before foundation is initialized
* Add new patterns and validators before or after foundation is initialized
```javascript
function myCustomValidator(
$el, /* jQuery element to validate */
required, /* is the element required according to the `[required]` attribute */
parent /* parent of the jQuery element `$el` */
) {
if (!required) return true;
var from = $('#'+$el.attr('data-greater-than')).val(),
to = $el.val();
return (parseInt(to) > parseInt(from));
};
// Set default options
Foundation.Abide.defaults.patterns['dashes_only'] = /^[0-9-]*$/;
Foundation.Abide.defaults.validators['greater_than'] = myCustomValidator;
// Initialize Foundation
$(document).foundation();
```
```html
```
## Accessibility
By default, Abide will add some accessibility attributes to your form elements. It is highly recommended to keep this option active as it improve the usability of your forms for disabled people. [Lean more about Accessibility in Foundation](accessibility.html).
However, if you think the attributes added by Abide are not correct, you can disable it by setting `a11yAttributes` (or `[data-a11y-attributes]`) to `false`.
Watch this part in video
