Wordpress invalidate cf7 after api call

Question

Here's my issue, I have contact form 7 for wordpress installed and during the wpcf7_before_send_mail I make a call to an API, I need to invalidate the form if the API returns an error then I need to invalidate the request and return the error passed back from the API call.

I set a flag to false on API failure and the error message is also stored but my form is going through as success despite the failure I induce.

add_action("wpcf7_before_send_mail", "wpcf7_send_contact_builder");
function wpcf7_send_contact_builder($form) {
    $submission = WPCF7_Submission::get_instance();
    $wpcf7_data = $submission->get_posted_data();
    ... api call and set $success to true if ok and false if not ...
    if (!$success) {
        $form->status = 'validation_failed (statuscode:' . $xml->status->statuscode[0] . ').';
        $form->valid = false;
        $form->response = $xml->status->statusdesc[0];
        return $forml
    }
}

I've also tried using:

$form->invalidate('validation_failed (statuscode:' . $xml->status->statuscode[0] . ').', $xml->status->statusdesc[0]);

But whichever way I am unable to prevent the success email being sent and the form validates as successful. Debugging proved that the !success in the if statement is working and the code contained is added to the variable. I also tried as if form was an array ($form['valid'] = false) but this also didn't work and the form submits as successful. Any ideas of what I'm missing here? I've omitted the code for the API call itself and the determining of the correct form id, both of these work correctly, only the form I'm after is parsed and the API call is returning the expected data.

Answer 1

I needed the same. After going through the CF7 plugin files, I found the following solution:

//To make it working, we must need at least CF7-v5.0;
add_action( 'wpcf7_before_send_mail', 'cf7_validate_api', 15, 3 );

function cf7_validate_api($cf7, &$abort, $submission){

    if ( $cf7->id() !== 789 ) //CF7 post-id from admin settings;
        return;

    $errMsg = '';

    //$submission = WPCF7_Submission::get_instance();
    $postedData = $submission->get_posted_data();
    //$postedData['more-data'] = 'something';
    unset($postedData['not-sending-data']);

    //-----API posting------
    $url = "http://my-web.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=get-something";
    $username = 'apiUserName';
    $password = 'apiUserPass';

    $args = [
        'headers' => [
            'Authorization' => "Basic ".base64_encode( $username . ':' . $password ),
            'Accept' => 'application/json; charset=utf-8', // The API returns JSON
            //'Content-Type' => 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
        ],
        'body' => $postedData
    ];
    $response = wp_remote_post( $url, $args );
    //------------------

    if( is_wp_error( $response ) ){
        $error_message = $response->get_error_message();
        $errMsg = "Something went wrong:\n{$error_message}";

    } else {
        $response_body = wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response );
        $data = json_decode( $response_body );

        if( empty($data) || $data->status==0 ){ //API validation error!
            $errMsg = $data->msg->title."\n".$data->msg->description;
        }
    }

    if( $errMsg ){ //do not send mail;
        //$cf7->skip_mail = true; //for older versions!
        $abort = true; //==> Here, it is with 'called by reference' since CF7-v5.0 :)
        $submission->set_status( 'validation_failed' );
        //$submission->set_response( $cf7->message( 'validation_error' ) ); //msg from admin settings;
        $submission->set_response( $cf7->filter_message($errMsg) ); //custom msg;
    }
}

Hopefully, it will help someone. Happy Coding :)