react-form-generator

Generate, validate, and parse React forms based on arbitrary JSON schemas.

Installation

npm install --save form-generator-react

Or download from this repo and use globally (FormGenerator) or with RequireJS

Demo

To run the demo app, navigate to /demo and run:

npm install
npm start
open http://localhost:3000

Usage

First, instantiate a FormGenerator instance as follows:

const formGenerator = new FormGenerator(<inputsMap>);

• inputsMap is an object mapping input component types to input component implementations. E.g. inputsMap.TextInput could equal some component that implements the TextInput interface (see src/input-components for examples of this).

Next, to instantiate an actual FormGeneratorForm component, use formGenerator.create:

const formComponent = formGenerator.create(<formSchema>, <ref>, <onSubmit>);

• formSchema is a JSON schema for the form
• ref is the ref-string for the FormGeneratorForm
• onSubmit is the submission callback for the form, whose first parameter is an object in the same form as the initial schema, but with the form data filled in where the form field definitions were previously.

Form Schema Options

A valid form schema is just an object of the form

var schema = {
  fieldName1: <FormField>,
  fieldName2: <FormField>,
  ...
};

Where FormField values are objects with metadata describing a field's type, along with additional metadata for things like default values, validation, labels, and the like.

FormField Options

A valid FormField object must have a type attribute (with the exception of hidden fields) and can contain additional metadata.

FormField type Options

• String
• Number
• Boolean
• [String]
• [Number]
• [Boolean]
• [<FormField>]
• { objectField: <FormField>, ... }
• [{ objectField: <FormField>, ... }]

Note how in the last three type examples, we define FormField's recursively as objects or arrays of arbitrarily-nested FormField's, each of which can have all of the same metadata as top-level fields (like default values, validators, etc.).

Additional FormField Options

• enum: for Number and String fields, you can add an enum attribute that equals an array of allowed values. Adding an enum attribute will render the field as a <select> tag.
• label: the label for a particular field in the form view.
• defaultValue: a default value for the field. This works for primitive types, arrays, objects, and arrays of objects/arrays. Note that for recursive FormField definitions, the more deeply nested defaultValue's will take precedence.
• isRequired: if true, it will automatically validate using the FormGenerator.validators.nonEmpty validator.
• hidden: if true, the field will be hidden from the form view, but its defaultValue will show up in the parsed form data after submission. Note that hidden fields do not need to have a type.
• validate: a validator function whose first argument is the value of the field at the time of validation and whose return value is some error message in case where the value does not pass some predicate test.
• validators: the same as validate but for multiple validators.

FormField Validators

Here is a list of currently built-in validator-generators, located in the formGenerator.validators object. Each one returns a validator function that takes in a field's current value at the time of invokation and returns an error message (which is then rendered in the form view) if some predicate test fails.

• lengthEquals(len): validates that length equals len
• minLength(len): validates length is at least len
• maxLength(len): validates length is at most len
• regex(expr): validates that the field matches the regular expression expr
• nonEmpty(): validates that field is not empty
• number(): validates that field is a number

Example

const formGenerator = new FormGenerator({
  TextInput: SomeTextInput,
  // ...
});

const Example = React.createClass({
  schema: {
    stringField: {
      type: String,
      label: 'String Field',
      defaultValue: 'Welp',
      validators: [
          formGenerator.validators.minLength(1),
          formGenerator.validators.maxLength(10),
          (val) => {
            if (val.toLowerCase().indexOf('welp') === -1) {
              return 'Error: input must contain "welp"';
            }
          }
      ],
      isRequired: true
    },
    passwordField: {
      type: String,
      label: 'Password Field',
      isPassword: true,
      isRequired: true
    },
    numberField: {
      type: Number,
      label: 'Number Field',
      validate: (val) => {
        if (val % 10 !== 0) {
          return 'Error: input must be divisible by 10';
        }
      }
    },
    // Date fields not implemented
    // dateField: {
    //   type: Date,
    //   label: 'Date Field'
    // },
    enumField: {
      type: String,
      enum: ['', 'option 1', 'option 2'],
      label: 'Enum Field',
      defaultValue: 'option 2'
    },
    booleanField: {
      type: Boolean,
      label: 'Boolean Field',
      defaultValue: true
    },
    arrayField: {
      type: [String],
      label: 'Simple Array Field'
    },
    hiddenField: {
      hidden: true,
      defaultValue: 'Hidden Field Data'
    },
    objectField: {
      type: {
        embeddedString: {
          type: String,
          label: 'Object String'
        },
        embeddedArray: {
          type: [String],
          label: 'Embedded Array',
          defaultValue: ['array value 1', 'array value 2']
        },
        embeddedHiddenObjectArray: {
          hidden: true,
          defaultValue: [{
            hiddenFieldData: 'Hidden field data',
            moreHiddenData: 'More hidden data'
          }]
        }
      },
      label: 'Object Field'
    },
    arrayOfObjectsField: {
      type: [{
        embeddedString: {
          type: String,
          label: 'Array Object String'
        },
        embeddedEnum: {
          type: Number,
          enum: [1, 2, 3, 4],
          defaultValue: 3,
          label: 'Enum Field'
        }
      }],
      label: 'Array of Objects Field'
    },
    arrayOfArraysField: {
      type: [[String]],
      defaultValue: [['1', '2'], ['3', '4']],
      label: 'Array of Array of Strings'
    },
    arrayOfArrayOfArrayOfObjectsField: {
      type: [[[{
        stringField: {
          type: String,
          label: 'String Field'
        },
        arrayField: {
          type: [Number],
          label: 'Array of Numbers'
        }
      }]]],
      defaultValue: [
        [
          [{
            stringField: 'String 1',
            arrayField: [1, 2]
          },
          { stringField: 'String 2',
            arrayField: [3, 4]
          }]
        ],
        [
          [{
            stringField: 'String 3',
            arrayField: [5, 6]
          }]
        ]
      ],
      label: 'Array of Array of Array of Objects'
    }
  },

  onSubmit: function(data) {
    console.log('Parsed form data', data);
    // Reset fields back to default values
    this.refs.myFormRef.reset();
  },

  render: function() {
    const formElement = formGenerator.create({
      schema: this.schema,
      ref: 'myFormRef',
      onSubmit: this.onSubmit
    });
    return <span>{formElement}</span>;
  }
});