Customer register - make birthday field required

In my previous article about making gender field required I explained the way of how to mark gender field required. In this guide I want to explain how to make "birthday" field required. In this case steps are the same as steps described previously. But in addition to these steps we need to change ObjectModel.php file too. This file is a base of all objects (like customer, product, cart, etc.) and it is located in classes/ObjectModel.php file.

Why we need to change this file too?

because "birthday" field is not a single field, it consists of three other fields: year, month and day. So in effect we will see notification that "birthday field is requried" even if we will fill out year, month and day (because birthday field 'as is', is not send after submit the register form - only year, month, day are submitted - so they arent with 'birthday' name).

How to make birthday field required

As I already mentioned in previous tutorial - we need to mark birthday field as a 'required' => true. Details about that you can find here: article about making gender field required. So please mark birthday field as required and go to the next step of this guide.

Changing objectModel.php file

Please open file classes/ObjectModel.php. You can find there function public function validateController($htmlentities = true). Inside this function you can find foreach loop that looks like:

foreach ($this->def['fields'] as $field => $data) {
...
...
//foreach loop code here
//foreach loop code here
//foreach loop code here
...
...
}

At the begining of this foreach loop we need to create 'birthday' field that will be build based on posted fields: year, month and day. To create such variable we need to use special code that i attach below:

            if ($field=="birthday"){
                if (isset($_POST['years']) && isset($_POST['months']) && isset($_POST['days'])){
                    $_POST['birthday']=(empty($_POST['years']) ? '' : (int)Tools::getValue('years').'-'.(int)Tools::getValue('months').'-'.(int)Tools::getValue('days'));
                }
            }

I attach modified function below (code that I added to create 'birthday' variable is highlighted)

    /**
     * Validates submitted values and returns an array of errors, if any.
     *
     * @param bool $htmlentities If true, uses htmlentities() for field name translations in errors.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function validateController($htmlentities = true)
    {
        $this->cacheFieldsRequiredDatabase();
        $errors = array();
        $required_fields_database = (isset(self::$fieldsRequiredDatabase[get_class($this)])) ? self::$fieldsRequiredDatabase[get_class($this)] : array();
        foreach ($this->def['fields'] as $field => $data) {
            
            if ($field=="birthday"){
                if (isset($_POST['years']) && isset($_POST['months']) && isset($_POST['days'])){
                    $_POST['birthday']=(empty($_POST['years']) ? '' : (int)Tools::getValue('years').'-'.(int)Tools::getValue('months').'-'.(int)Tools::getValue('days'));
                }
            }
            
            $value = Tools::getValue($field, $this->{$field});
            // Check if field is required by user
            if (in_array($field, $required_fields_database)) {
                $data['required'] = true;
            }

            // Checking for required fields
            if (isset($data['required']) && $data['required'] && empty($value) && $value !== '0') {
                if (!$this->id || $field != 'passwd') {
                    $errors[$field] = '<b>'.self::displayFieldName($field, get_class($this), $htmlentities).'</b> '.Tools::displayError('is required.');
                }
            }

            // Checking for maximum fields sizes
            if (isset($data['size']) && !empty($value) && Tools::strlen($value) > $data['size']) {
                $errors[$field] = sprintf(
                    Tools::displayError('%1$s is too long. Maximum length: %2$d'),
                    self::displayFieldName($field, get_class($this), $htmlentities),
                    $data['size']
                );
            }

            // Checking for fields validity
            // Hack for postcode required for country which does not have postcodes
            if (!empty($value) || $value === '0' || ($field == 'postcode' && $value == '0')) {
                $validation_error = false;
                if (isset($data['validate'])) {
                    $data_validate = $data['validate'];
                    if (!Validate::$data_validate($value) && (!empty($value) || $data['required'])) {
                        $errors[$field] = '<b>'.self::displayFieldName($field, get_class($this), $htmlentities).
                            '</b> '.Tools::displayError('is invalid.');
                        $validation_error = true;
                    }
                }

                if (!$validation_error) {
                    if (isset($data['copy_post']) && !$data['copy_post']) {
                        continue;
                    }
                    if ($field == 'passwd') {
                        if ($value = Tools::getValue($field)) {
                            $this->{$field} = Tools::encrypt($value);
                        }
                    } else {
                        $this->{$field} = $value;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        return $errors;
    }

If you will replace original function with code above prestashop will spawn information about 'birthday field is required' only if year, month and day fields will not be submitted during customer register process. So everything will work as it should work.