Zod validation on forms vs fields

[iSpeakNerd]

I was following along with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pys2ExswZT0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSboMHfPuZA from Balastrong's stuff when I found some interesting behavior.

Using a Zod schema (any schema?) for the whole form will overwrite inline validation behavior on form fields.

ex.

function LoginPage() {
  const form = useAppForm({
    defaultValues: {
      password: "",
      confirmPassword: "",
    },
    validators: {
      onBlur: z
        .object({
          password: z
            .string()
            .min(8, { message: "Must be 8 characters or more" })
            .max(32, { message: "Must be 32 characters or less" }),
          confirmPassword: z.string(),
  })

  
// .......
  return (
    <>
      <form>
// .....
        <form.Field
          name="confirmPassword"
          validators={{
            onChangeListenTo: ["password"],
            onChange: ({ value, fieldApi }) => {
              value !== fieldApi.form.getFieldValue("password") &&
                "Passwords do not match";
            },
          }}
          // what to render
          children={(field) => (
              <>
                  <input
                      type="password"
                      name={field.name}
                      placeholder={"Confirm password"}
                      value={field.state.value}
                      onChange={(e) => field.handleChange(e.target.value)}
                      onBlur={(e) => field.handleBlur?.()}
                  />
                {/* show field errors after input */}
                {field.state.meta.isTouched && !field.state.meta.isValid && (
                  <div className="text-red-500 font-bold text-sm">
                    {field.state.meta.errors[0]?.message as string}
                  </div>
                )}
              </>
         )}
       />
    </form>
  </>
 )
}

this custom field validation on confirmPassword

validators= {{
  onChangeListenTo: ["password"],
  onChange: ({ value, fieldApi }) => {
    value !== fieldApi.form.getFieldValue("password") &&
    Passwords do not match";},
}}

gets ignored in favor of the zod form schema for that field confirmPassword: z.string() and so the custom error gets ignored and not displayed to user.

===================================

We can use only inline zod for fields (and do a check for field errors on form state onSubmit/onBlur) or use Zod to add the similar confirmPassword behavior as shown in the tutorial.

const LoginSchema = z
  .object(
    password: z
      .string()
      .min(8, { message: "Must be 8 characters or more" })
      .max(32, { message: "Must be 32 characters or less" }),
    confirmPassword: z.string(),
})
.superRefine(({ password, confirmPassword }, ctx) => {
    if (password !== confirmPassword) {
      ctx.addIssue({
        code: z.ZodIssueCode.custom,
        message: "Passwords do not match",
        path: ["confirmPassword"],
      });
    }
  })

[LeCarbonator]

Standard schema issues are objects with a message property, but your field validator returns a string for the error. Your error may resolve to undefined (<string>.message) and won't be rendered. Could you double check the typing?

Field validator errors (should) take precedence over form validator errors, and I'm able to recreate it on a stackblitz example.
https://stackblitz.com/edit/tanstack-form-jff7pyyu?file=src%2Findex.tsx