Customer register - gender field required

In this step by step guide you can check how you can make "gender" field required during customer register process. Sometimes we need to collect this kind of information from customer, especially for some kind of marketing purposes (like send personalized voucher codes, birthday coupons etc.) In this short guide I want to show you the proper way to make gender field required. In the same way you can mark other register customer fields required.

How to make gender field required during customer registration

This kind of modification requires minor modification of PrestaShop core files. Register process to create an customer account uses "customer" object that is available in classes/Customer.php file. And this is the file that we will modify. This file contains definition of object "customer". The code related to object definition looks like:

 /**
     * @see ObjectModel::$definition
     */
    public static $definition = array(
        'table' => 'customer',
        'primary' => 'id_customer',
        'fields' => array(
            'secure_key' =>                array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isMd5', 'copy_post' => false),
            'lastname' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isName', 'required' => true, 'size' => 32),
            'firstname' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isName', 'required' => true, 'size' => 32),
            'email' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isEmail', 'required' => true, 'size' => 128),
            'passwd' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isPasswd', 'required' => true, 'size' => 32),
            'last_passwd_gen' =>            array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_gender' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedId'),
            'birthday' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_DATE, 'validate' => 'isBirthDate'),
            'newsletter' =>                array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool'),
            'newsletter_date_add' =>        array('type' => self::TYPE_DATE,'copy_post' => false),
            'ip_registration_newsletter' =>    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'copy_post' => false),
            'optin' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool'),
            'website' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isUrl'),
            'company' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isGenericName'),
            'siret' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isSiret'),
            'ape' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isApe'),
            'outstanding_allow_amount' =>    array('type' => self::TYPE_FLOAT, 'validate' => 'isFloat', 'copy_post' => false),
            'show_public_prices' =>            array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool', 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_risk' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedInt', 'copy_post' => false),
            'max_payment_days' =>            array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedInt', 'copy_post' => false),
            'active' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool', 'copy_post' => false),
            'deleted' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool', 'copy_post' => false),
            'note' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_HTML, 'validate' => 'isCleanHtml', 'size' => 65000, 'copy_post' => false),
            'is_guest' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool', 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_shop' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedId', 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_shop_group' =>                array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedId', 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_default_group' =>            array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_lang' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedId', 'copy_post' => false),
            'date_add' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_DATE, 'validate' => 'isDate', 'copy_post' => false),
            'date_upd' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_DATE, 'validate' => 'isDate', 'copy_post' => false),
        ),
    );

To make some of these fields required you have to put param 'required' => true to array() near the field definition. So below you can find highlighted line with id_gender (gender) field definition with 'required' => true param. Once your customer object definition will look like below - it will be necessary to fill out field "gender" during register process.

 /**
     * @see ObjectModel::$definition
     */
    public static $definition = array(
        'table' => 'customer',
        'primary' => 'id_customer',
        'fields' => array(
            'secure_key' =>                array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isMd5', 'copy_post' => false),
            'lastname' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isName', 'required' => true, 'size' => 32),
            'firstname' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isName', 'required' => true, 'size' => 32),
            'email' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isEmail', 'required' => true, 'size' => 128),
            'passwd' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isPasswd', 'required' => true, 'size' => 32),
            'last_passwd_gen' =>            array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_gender' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedId', 'required' => true),
            'birthday' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_DATE, 'validate' => 'isBirthDate', 'required' => true),
            'newsletter' =>                array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool'),
            'newsletter_date_add' =>        array('type' => self::TYPE_DATE,'copy_post' => false),
            'ip_registration_newsletter' =>    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'copy_post' => false),
            'optin' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool'),
            'website' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isUrl'),
            'company' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isGenericName'),
            'siret' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isSiret'),
            'ape' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_STRING, 'validate' => 'isApe'),
            'outstanding_allow_amount' =>    array('type' => self::TYPE_FLOAT, 'validate' => 'isFloat', 'copy_post' => false),
            'show_public_prices' =>            array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool', 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_risk' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedInt', 'copy_post' => false),
            'max_payment_days' =>            array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedInt', 'copy_post' => false),
            'active' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool', 'copy_post' => false),
            'deleted' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool', 'copy_post' => false),
            'note' =>                        array('type' => self::TYPE_HTML, 'validate' => 'isCleanHtml', 'size' => 65000, 'copy_post' => false),
            'is_guest' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_BOOL, 'validate' => 'isBool', 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_shop' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedId', 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_shop_group' =>                array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedId', 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_default_group' =>            array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'copy_post' => false),
            'id_lang' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_INT, 'validate' => 'isUnsignedId', 'copy_post' => false),
            'date_add' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_DATE, 'validate' => 'isDate', 'copy_post' => false),
            'date_upd' =>                    array('type' => self::TYPE_DATE, 'validate' => 'isDate', 'copy_post' => false),
        ),
    );

Please note that if you want to make birthday field required - you have to follow additional guide. It's because of birthday field specification (it is based on 3 separated fields: year, month, day and because of this - it requires a little more development). Check how to make birthday field required properly.