User Guide

Validating form data using hidden fields 677
Hidden form field considerations
Consider the following rules and recommendations when determining whether and how to use
hidden form field validation:
• Use hidden field validation if you want to validate data from standard HTML input tags. The
cfinput and cftextarea tags include a validateAt attribute that provides a simpler method
for specifying server-side validation.
• Consider using hidden field validation with the cfinput and cftextarea tags if you specify
multiple validation rules for a single field and want to provide a separate error message for each
validation.
• Do not use the suffixes listed in the table as field names.
• Adding a validation rule to a field does not make it a required field. You must add a separate
_required hidden field to ensure user entry.
_cfformtelephone Standard U.S. telephone formats. Does not support international
telephone numbers.
Allows area codes with or without parentheses, and hyphens (-),
spaces, periods, or no separators between standard number
groups. Can be preceded by a 1 long-distance designator, and can
end with an up-to-5 digit extension, optionally starting with x. The
area code and exchange must begin with a digit in the range 1 - 9.
_cfformzipcode A 5-digit or 9-digit U.S. ZIP code. In 9-digit codes, the final four
digits must be preceded by a hyphen (-) or space.
_cfformemail A valid e-mail address. Valid address characters are a-zA-Z0-9_-
and the period and separator. There must be a single at sign (@) and
the text after the @ character must include a period, as in
[e-mail] or [e-mail].
_cfformURL A valid URL. Must start with http:\\, https:\\, ftp:\\, file:\\, mailto:, or
news:. Can include, as appropriate, username and password
designators and query strings. The main part of the address can only
have the characters A-Za-z0-9 and -.
_cfformboolean A value that can be treated as a Boolean: Yes, No, True, False, 0, 1.
_cfformUUID A universally unique identifier (UUID) that follows the ColdFusion
format, xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, where x is a
hexadecimal number.
_cfformGUID A unique identifier that follows the Microsoft/DCE format, xxxxxxxx-
xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx, where x is a hexadecimal number.
_cfformnoblanks The field must not include blanks. ColdFusion uses this validation
only if you also specify a _
required hidden field.
_cfformmaxlength The number of characters must not exceed the number specified by
the tag
value attribute.
_cfformregex,
_cfformregular_expression
The data must match a JavaScript regular expression specified by
the tag
value attribute.
_required, _cfformrequired Data must be entered or selected in the form field.
Field name suffix Verifies