[Uganda project - Technoforte team] Required NAME subfields accept whitespace-only values

[Abhay-Dev-Gautam]

Required NAME subfields accept whitespace-only values

Summary

Required name subfields (such as given name and surname) currently accept values that contain only whitespace.
Although leading and trailing spaces are trimmed correctly during sanitization, required validation is evaluated before trimming. This allows whitespace-only values to pass validation and results in empty names without any validation error.

This issue is visible on the preview page, where the full name may appear blank with no error shown.

Current Observation

The following scenarios are currently possible:

1. A required surname field is filled with only spaces

   • Example input: " "
   • No validation error is shown
   • Field passes required validation

2. Given name is filled correctly, but surname contains only spaces

   • No validation error
   • Preview page shows only the given name

3. Both required name subfields (given name and surname) contain only spaces

   • No validation error
   • Preview page shows a blank full name

In all cases, trimming is applied correctly, but validation does not fail.

Expected Behaviour

• Required NAME subfields should not accept values that resolve to empty strings after trimming
• Whitespace-only input should not satisfy required validation
• Blank names should not pass silently to the preview page

Root Cause Analysis

• Required validation is evaluated on the raw input value
• Whitespace-only strings are considered present
• Trimming occurs later in the validation / sanitization pipeline
• isValidEnglishName() allows whitespace-only strings
• There is no validation step that checks required fields after trimming

As a result, required name fields can resolve to empty values without triggering any validation error.

Why This Is a Core Issue

• Validation order is defined in core
• Country-level configuration cannot reliably enforce this behavior
• This impacts data integrity across:
  • Preview page
  • Certificates
  • Search and deduplication
  • External integrations

The behavior affects all deployments uniformly.

Clarification Requested

• Is this behavior intentional?
• Are whitespace-only values expected to satisfy required NAME subfields?
• How should required validation interact with input normalization for NAME fields?

Impact

• Blank identity data can be saved without any error
• Invalid state is not visible to the user
• Required field semantics are violated
• Affects all environments consistently

Environment

• OpenCRVS V1.9.6
• Field type: NAME (firstname, surname, middlename)
• Reproducible with current core behavior
• Country: Uganda

[prinzab]

@Abhay-Dev-Gautam A ticket has been created for this: #11736

[prinzab]

This has been looked into and it isn't a bug. It is by design. @Abhay-Dev-Gautam I am going to go ahead now and close this discussion.