Visualforce Developer’s Guide

Introducing Visualforce
Tools for Visualforce Development
Getting a Quick Start with Visualforce
Customizing the Appearance and Output of Visualforce Pages
Standard Controllers
Standard List Controllers
Custom Controllers and Controller Extensions
What are Custom Controllers and Controller Extensions?
Building a Custom Controller
Building a Controller Extension
Building a Custom List Controller
Controller Methods
Controller Class Security
Working with Large Sets of Data
Considerations for Creating Custom Controllers and Controller Extensions
Order of Execution in a Visualforce Page
Testing Custom Controllers and Controller Extensions
Validation Rules and Custom Controllers
Using the transient Keyword
Advanced Examples
Overriding Buttons, Links, and Tabs with Visualforce
Using Static Resources
Creating and Using Custom Components
Dynamic Visualforce Bindings
Dynamic Visualforce Components
Integrating Email with Visualforce
Visualforce Charting
Creating Maps with Visualforce
Render Flows with Visualforce
Templating with Visualforce
Developing for Mobile Devices
Adding Visualforce to a Force.com AppExchange App
Using JavaScript in Visualforce Pages
Best Practices
Standard Component Reference
Appendices
Glossary
PDF

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Validation Rules and Custom Controllers

If a user enters data on a Visualforce page that uses a custom controller, and that data causes a validation rule error, the error can be displayed on the Visualforce page. Like a page that uses a standard controller, if the validation rule error location is a field associated with an <apex:inputField> component, the error displays there. If the validation rule error location is set to the top of the page, use the <apex:messages> component within the <apex:page> to display the error. However, to get the information to the page, the custom controller must catch the exception.

For example, suppose you have the following page:

The ID of a valid account record must be specified as a query parameter in the URL for this page to render. For example, http://na3.salesforce.com/apex/myValidationPage?id=001x000xxx3Jsxb.

Note

You need to write a custom controller like the following:
When the user saves the page, if a validation error is triggered, the exception is caught and displayed on the page as they are for a standard controller.