Messages not coming through

[nathanhornby]

I'm having a hard time getting anything out of the validation process.

I'm using Passport and the failureFlash: true argument. The flash object is being populated, but all I'm getting is: { error: [ 'Pro validation failed' ] } (Pro being the name of the model/schema) - none of the actual error messages I'm setting using this package.

I don't have this issue when using standard inline validation in the schema.

Am I doing something obviously wrong?

[leepowelldev]

Do you have a simplified code example of the issue?

[nathanhornby]

Sure, hopefully this leaves enough detail in place: https://gist.github.com/nathanhornby/60fcf1f37a8c7ad2fd20

[nathanhornby]

Ugh, I just noticed after looking over that gist that I was declaring one of the validators as isAscii when it should be isLength - I'm going to go check that wasn't the issue!

[nathanhornby]

Darn, unfortunately that wasn't it - I still just get { error: [ 'Pro validation failed' ] } in the flash object.

Although if I output the err object just before I pass it back using return done(null, false, err); then it outputs correctly. So actually I think this issue is specific to the Passport workflow…

It seems like it's just grabbing the message:

message: 'Pro validation failed', name: 'ValidationError', errors: { … }

So I may have to raise this with the Passport people - unless you have any insight! Namely why it would work fine with the standard mongoose response (which I thought this package also used).

[leepowelldev]

Could you post the output of the error object for me please from the save method.

[nathanhornby]

Of course, find the full object here: https://gist.github.com/nathanhornby/a01931b9001792aa0ff6

[leepowelldev]

Ah, ok. So it's using the error.message property. Maybe try this if you want a more detailed output:

// Passport

passport.use('local-signup', new LocalStrategy({
  usernameField: 'email',
  passwordField: 'password',
  passReqToCallback: true
},
function(req, email, password, done) {
  …
    newPro.save(function(err) {
      if (err) {
        return done(null, false, { message: err.toString() });
      }
      return done(null, newPro);
    });
  …
})

This is simply making use of mongoose's validation Error object: https://github.com/Automattic/mongoose/blob/master/lib/error/validation.js

Alternatively if you wanted to just display the first error message you could grab the first ValidatorError in the err.errors object.

[nathanhornby]

Ah OK - that change gave me the two errors that triggered as a comma separated string (just like it's asking) - so thanks! How can I simply return the errors object as-is? I just had a couple tries but am struggling to return what I need (sorry still new to node/mongoose!). I was hoping to walk through the errors and output them with their fields, so I do need it as an object ideally.

Edit:

OK I think I get what's going on - the way passport sets those flash error messages they need to be a string (right?), passing back an object just results in an empty flash message. So I think ultimately this is going to be an issue with Passport.

Thanks a lot for your help by the way.

[leepowelldev]

Well, the ValidationError object contains a property called errors which is a object of path (key) value to ValidatorError objects. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do.

[leepowelldev]

If you pass an error object to Passport then the flash message will display error.message, if you want to pass a custom message for the flash message, then you need to pass an object with a property of message (essentially simulating an Error object).

[nathanhornby]

Yes that's the object I want to pass back - but I can't as I can only pass back a string (which is oddly limiting, but on Passports end).

I'm looking at walking through the errors and writing each one to req.flash myself - as then at least I'll be able to access them individually - just all feels very very clunky!

Edit: "If you pass an error object to Passport then the flash message will display error.message". When I pass an object to Passport's done() the req.flash is just blank.

[leepowelldev]

Where do you want to pass it back to? Into your route handler?

[nathanhornby]

Yep (although all I'll be doing there is passing it to the view)

[leepowelldev]

One dirty way would just be to attach it to the req object.

// Passport

passport.use('local-signup', new LocalStrategy({
  usernameField: 'email',
  passwordField: 'password',
  passReqToCallback: true
},
function(req, email, password, done) {
  …
    newPro.save(function(err) {
      if (err) {
        req.myPassportError = err;
        return done(null, false, { message: err.toString() });
      }
      return done(null, newPro);
    });
  …
})

Then It should be available to you in the req object in your route.

[nathanhornby]

Yea I'm currently looking at feeding it directly to the flash object, almost the same techinque:

// Passport

passport.use('local-signup', new LocalStrategy({
  usernameField: 'email',
  passwordField: 'password',
  passReqToCallback: true
},
function(req, email, password, done) {
  …
    newPro.save(function(err) {
      if (err) {
        if (err.errors) {
          req.flash('errors', err.errors);
        }
        return done(null, false, "Errors found");
      }
      return done(null, newPro);
    });
  …
})

Although I'm now having issues extracting the values in the view - so I'm not sure that's a valid approach!

My flash object (passed in as messages) now looks more like this:

[{ name:
    { properties: [Object],
      message: 'Your company name needs to be between 3 and 64 characters long',

But

<% if (messages) { %>
  <p><%= messages.name %></p>
  <p><%= messages.name.message %></p>
<% } %>

Is outputting nothing (not even [object Object]), and messages.name.message just generates errors because name isn't defined >.<

Gah! I'll battle on anyway - you've certainly gone above and beyond getting me in the right direction! Cheers.

[leepowelldev]

Just out of interest - is it really required to pass the full error object across. What is the end result you're looking for? To display all the error messages to the user as a list?

[nathanhornby]

I'll be displaying them inline, i.e. along with each respective input field. So having them as a comma separated list isn't ideal.

[leepowelldev]

OK, which version of Express as you using? 3?

[nathanhornby]

Latest, so 4.x

[leepowelldev]

Cool. Give me a sec to have a think. If you use connect-flash directly you maybe able to bypass Passport's usage of it, and that might give you a bit more flexibility.

[nathanhornby]

Thanks so much Lee - unnecessary but very much appreciated!

[leepowelldev]

Try this ... https://gist.github.com/leepowellcouk/17d25e5938e014077148

Turn off Passports flash feature, and don't pass the err object into it. This uses req.flash directly to stash the error messages per path that's got an error. Then in your route handler pass it into the view. So you should be able to access your messages with something like errors.name and errors.uri.

[leepowelldev]

Ah, just seen that Passport is handling the failure redirect too ... you might need to change that and use your own callback, or something similar.

[nathanhornby]

Awesome thanks Lee - I'll have a play!

[leepowelldev]

No worries - looking again, you should be fine to use the failure redirect as it'll grab the flash messages on the get request after the redirect has happened :)

Let me know how you get on.

[nathanhornby]

Woop - works a treat!

Edit: And no I didn't need to change the failure redirect!

[leepowelldev]

Great stuff!