I am having trouble finding out how to mark all form's fields as touched. The main problem is that if I do not touch fields and try to submit form - validation error in not shown up. I have placeholder for that piece of code in my controller.
My idea is simple:

  1. user clicks submit button
  2. all fields marks as touched
  3. error formatter reruns and displays validation errors

If anyone have other idea how to show errors on submit, without implementing new method - please share them. Thanks!


My simplified form:

<form class="form-horizontal" [formGroup]="form" (ngSubmit)="onSubmit(form.value)">
    <input type="text" id="title" class="form-control" formControlName="title">
    <span class="help-block" *ngIf="formErrors.title">{{ formErrors.title }}</span>
    <button>Submit</button>
</form>

And my controller:

import {Component, OnInit} from '@angular/core';
import {FormGroup, FormBuilder, Validators} from '@angular/forms';

@Component({
  selector   : 'pastebin-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html',
  styleUrls  : ['./app.component.css']
})
export class AppComponent implements OnInit {
  form: FormGroup;
  formErrors = {
    'title': ''
  };
  validationMessages = {
    'title': {
      'required': 'Title is required.'
    }
  };

  constructor(private fb: FormBuilder) {
  }

  ngOnInit(): void {
    this.buildForm();
  }

  onSubmit(form: any): void {
    // somehow touch all elements so onValueChanged will generate correct error messages

    this.onValueChanged();
    if (this.form.valid) {
      console.log(form);
    }
  }

  buildForm(): void {
    this.form = this.fb.group({
      'title': ['', Validators.required]
    });
    this.form.valueChanges
      .subscribe(data => this.onValueChanged(data));
  }

  onValueChanged(data?: any) {
    if (!this.form) {
      return;
    }

    const form = this.form;

    for (const field in this.formErrors) {
      if (!this.formErrors.hasOwnProperty(field)) {
        continue;
      }

      // clear previous error message (if any)
      this.formErrors[field] = '';
      const control = form.get(field);
      if (control && control.touched && !control.valid) {
        const messages = this.validationMessages[field];
        for (const key in control.errors) {
          if (!control.errors.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
            continue;
          }
          this.formErrors[field] += messages[key] + ' ';
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Solution 1:

From Angular 8 you can simply use

this.form.markAllAsTouched();

To mark a control and it's descendant controls as touched.

AbstractControl doc

Solution 2:

The following function recurses through controls in a form group and gently touches them. Because the controls field is an object, the code call Object.values() on the form group's control field.

  /**
   * Marks all controls in a form group as touched
   * @param formGroup - The form group to touch
   */
  private markFormGroupTouched(formGroup: FormGroup) {
    (<any>Object).values(formGroup.controls).forEach(control => {
      control.markAsTouched();

      if (control.controls) {
        this.markFormGroupTouched(control);
      }
    });
  }

Solution 3:

Regarding to @masterwork's answer. I tried that solution, but I got an error when the function tried to dig, recursively, inside a FormGroup, because there is passing a FormControl argument, instead of a FormGroup, at this line:

control.controls.forEach(c => this.markFormGroupTouched(c));

Here is my solution

markFormGroupTouched(formGroup: FormGroup) {
 (<any>Object).values(formGroup.controls).forEach(control => {
   if (control.controls) { // control is a FormGroup
     markFormGroupTouched(control);
   } else { // control is a FormControl
     control.markAsTouched();
   }
 });
}