div tag added by validation methods

You can customize this behavior. Look at the code example in the comments of #2210.

I have to reopen the ticket.

I saw that it was possible to customize this behavior, but I really think that this method should be modified in the trunk, because the default behavior is very bad, and totally breaks the html consistency.

I think it should be possible to give default values, for example a div="myDiv" options would put a div called myDiv around the field, and class="myClass" should add myClass to the class attribute of the field, and so on.

If no option is set, the default behaviour of setting a div would be applied, so old code won't break.

I think it's too bad to have to add extra code by hand to each Rails application in order to correct a bad behaviour, when this code could be added to the trunk.

Could this be fixed by switching to a <span>?

Why not.

But imho, adding a class to the field is semantically more correct.

I added a patch that covers this and other invalid code #4392.

Changing to <span>, which I did, is the easiest fix that doesn't change the functionality.

I agree that adding a class to the <input>/<textarea> is the better method but after some testing by a coworker, it was too hard to get consistent behavior across browsers.

What was the problem about consistent behavior across browsers ?

Changing the <div> to <span> doesn't change anything.

Putting the class on the <input> caused all sorts of problems, and the CSS involved was much more complex.

Any progress on a replacement? We can't change until after 1.2 anyway to preserve backward compatibility.

There have been dozens of tickets about this basic issue and it would be nice to see something done about it. Many patches and alternate ideas have been submitted, but they are constantly rejected. The issue here is a simple one: - The generators commonly wrap input fields in <p> tags - The fieldWithErrors wraps those inputs with div tags inside the <p> tags - <div>s inside <p>s breaks validations - Rails as a whole should not be generating code that will not validate without hacks (especially not something as common as this)

I don't know what needs to be done to convince someone to incorporate some sort of fix. It's going to break backwards compatibility, but that's certainly better than doing it wrong.

Fixing this is the first thing I do on a new Rails project. At the very least, we should make it possible to more easily modify what happens. My personal solution is:

ActionView::Base.field_error_proc = Proc.new do |html_tag, instance|

msg = instance.error_message if html_tag =~ /<(input|textarea|select)[^>]+class=/

class_attribute = html_tag =~ /class=['"]/ html_tag.insert(class_attribute + 7, "error ")

elsif html_tag =~ /<(input|textarea|select)/

first_whitespace = html_tag =~ /\s/ html_tag[first_whitespace] = " class='error' "

end html_tag

end

This is more robust than a lot of the other solutions because it works with elements that already have classes (simply appending the error class).

I'm not going to submit a patch along these lines because I don't think it'll do any good. Some official guidance would be nice.

Every time out-of-the-box-Rails generates invalid HTML, God kills a kitten... Help save the kittens, please fix this in trunk.

(Just adding my vote to the "This must be fixed" side. And I think just using <SPAN> instead of <DIV> is a good and simple fix for this).

Replying to daniel@collectiveidea.com:

Changing the <div> to <span> doesn't change anything.

Oh yes it does. <div>'s have a line break. <span>'s don't.

My form looks terrible after Rails adds its divs... unwanted breaks.

Some info here:

http://ethilien.net/archives/fixing-divfieldwitherrors-in-ruby-on-rails/

<span> makes far more sense.

Replying to carlivar:

Replying to daniel@collectiveidea.com:

Changing the <div> to <span> doesn't change anything.

Oh yes it does. <div>'s have a line break. <span>'s don't. My form looks terrible after Rails adds its divs... unwanted breaks.

carliver: That is easily solved with one line of CSS (.fieldWithErrors { display: inline; }). That's a very quick change (and should be added to the scaffold.css that ships with Rails).

Invalid code, on the other hand has lots of bad effects, and there's no excuse for it. Rails 2.0 is a perfect time to fix it.

However, after some experimentation I think this method of adding a class to the input is to difficult to make look good (which was my original comment). While I dont' remember the specifics (my comment is over a year old), the CSS involved to get the same look that Rails ships with today was highly complex.

That's why my year-old patch #4392 simply changes the <span> to a <div>. It keeps the rules simple, and only requires a small change (if any) to existing apps.

You might not like the other changes in my patch (#4392) but I'd be happy to split it up if I though it would help.

I realize I have my span/div backwards in my last comment, and the CSS too (display: table; which is already in scaffold.css)

Like I said, over a year ago...

Probably best to consolidate this with #4392 seeing as there's no patch over this-a-way.