---
title: "Feature: Validation flags and character limits"
manual: "Academic Base"
version: "main"
permalink: "https://docs.typo3.org/permalink/fgtclb/academic-base:feature-validation-character-limit-metadata@main"
source: "Changelog/3.0/Feature-ValidationCharacterLimitMetadata.rst"
rendered: "2026-10-17T08:47:46+00:00"
---

# Feature: Validation flags and character limits {#feature-validation-character-limit-metadata}

## Description {#description}

The shared `\FGTCLB\AcademicBase\Settings\Validation` value object now
keeps the normalised flag list it was built from (`$flags`) and carries
a readable-text character limit (`$characterLimit`, `0` for none).
`isRichText()` answers whether the `html` flag is set. Both properties
survive the cached `var_export()` round trip and default to an empty list
and `0`, so an entry written before they existed still restores.

`ValidationNormalizer::normalizeValidation()` understands four more
flags than the `required` / `readonly` / `disabled` / `email` /
`number` / `date` set of [Feature: Shared validation settings classes](https://docs.typo3.org/permalink/fgtclb/academic-base:feature-shared-validation-settings@main), and
takes three optional arguments:

| Flag | Effect |
| --- | --- |
| `url` | Adds `UrlValidator` and the input type `url`. |
| `tel` | Input type `tel`. No validator, no TCA change. |
| `textarea` | Input type `textarea`. No TCA change. |
| `html` | Input type `textarea` and `isRichText()`. No TCA change. |

The optional `fieldName` names the database column when it differs from
the underscored identifier, `renderType` names the frontend control the
flags refine - a `select` stays a `select` input type even though no flag
says so, and `ckeditor` is a `textarea` \- and `characterLimit` is
carried through as metadata. None of the three, and none of the four flags,
change the TCA fragment: only `required`, `email` and `number` do, as
before. Flags are trimmed, lower-cased and de-duplicated in configured order,
and entries that are not strings are dropped.

## Impact {#impact}

`EXT:academic_persons` builds its section graph on these arguments: the
fields of its settings file name their control and column, its rich text
fields carry a limit that the editing frontend of `EXT:academic_persons_edit`
shows and enforces server side. The limit counts readable text, not markup,
and is deliberately not copied into the TCA, where `max` would count the
markup. Backend FormEngine on TYPO3 v13 and v14 is unaffected by any of it.

An unknown flag used to be dropped and is now kept in `$flags`; it still
has no other effect.