Validation

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Rules
    1. Conditional Rules
    2. Creating Custom Rules
      1. Using Objects
      2. Using Callables
    3. Halting Validation
  3. Error messages
    1. Error Message Placeholders
  4. Validating Form Input
  5. Validating Models
  6. Skeleton Project Examples
    1. Error Message Configuration
    2. Controller Example
    3. Console Command Example
  7. Built-In Rules

Introduction

Validating data is a fundamental part of every web application. Whether it be form data or a single value, Opulence makes it easy to validate your data using a fluent syntax. For example, want to verify a password is set and matches the confirmation password? Easy:

use Opulence\Validation\Rules\Errors\Compilers\Compiler;
use Opulence\Validation\Rules\Errors\ErrorTemplateRegistry;
use Opulence\Validation\Rules\Factories\RulesFactory;
use Opulence\Validation\Rules\RuleExtensionRegistry;
use Opulence\Validation\Validator;

// Set some error message templates
$errorTemplateRegistry = new ErrorTemplateRegistry();
$errorTemplateRegistry->registerErrorTemplatesFromConfig([
    'required' => 'The :field input is required',
    'equalsField' => 'The :field input must match the :other input'
]);

// Create the components
$rulesFactory = new RulesFactory(
    new RuleExtensionRegistry(),
    $errorTemplateRegistry,
    new Compiler()
);
$validator = new Validator($rulesFactory);

// Set some rules for the "password" field
$validator->field('password')
    ->required()
    ->equalsField('confirm-password');

// Validate the input
if (!$validator->isValid(['password' => '1337', 'confirm-password' => 'asdf'])) {
    print_r($validator->getErrors()->getAll());
}

Note: To make it easier to create validators, if you're using the skeleton project, an Opulence\Validation\Factories\IValidatorFactory is created and bound to the IoC container for you.

Opulence's validation library is framework-agnostic, making it easy to use with both Opulence and other frameworks.

Rules

Whenever you call Opulence\Validation\Validator::field(), a Rules object will be created. It contains a bunch of built-in rules as well as methods to get any errors for the field. Most methods are chainable, letting you build up the rules like this:

$validator->field('to')
    ->required()
    ->email();

Conditional Rules

Sometimes, you may only want to apply a rule if certain conditions are met. To specify a condition, call condition() on the Rules object. It accepts a callable with two parameters:

  1. The value of the field
  2. A list of all fields being validated

The callable should return true if the condition has been met, otherwise false. Any rule added after condition() will only be run if the condition is met. If you'd like to end the list of conditional rules and add a non-conditional rule, call endCondition() before adding the non-conditional rule.

Conditional Rule Example

Let's say there are two inputs: a dropdown specifying what type of contact information we're providing, and a text box with the actual contact information. If the contact type is "email", we want to force the contact information to be a valid email:

$validator->field('contact-info')
    ->condition(function ($value, array $inputs) {
        return $inputs['contact-type'] == 'email';
    })
    ->email();
$validator->isValid([
    'contact-info' => 'foo@bar.com',
    'contact-type' => 'email'
]);

Since "contact-type" was "email", the condition was met, and the "email" rule was run.

Creating Custom Rules

Each rule in Rules implements Opulence\Validation\Rules\IRule, which provides two methods:

If you'd like to add a custom rule, you can use RuleExtensionRegistry::registerRule(). It accepts either:

Using Objects

If your rule needs to accept extra arguments, such as a value to compare to, implement IRuleWithArgs instead of IRule. Let's look at an example of a rule that forces an email to be from a certain domain:

use Opulence\Validation\Rules\IRuleWithArgs;

class EmailDomainRule implements IRuleWithArgs
{
    protected $domain = null;

    public function getErrorPlaceholders() : array
    {
        return ['domain' => $this->domain];
    }

    public function getSlug() : string
    {
        return 'emailDomain';
    }

    public function passes($value, array $allValues = []) : bool
    {
        if ($this->domain === null) {
            throw new LogicException('Email domain not set');
        }

        // Check if the value is even a valid email address
        if (!filter_var($value, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
            return false;
        }

        return preg_match(
            '/@'{preg_quote($this->domain, '/')}$/",
            $value
        ) === 1;
    }

    public function setArgs(array $args)
    {
        if (count($args) == 0 || !is_string($args[0])) {
            throw new InvalidArgumentException("Must pass a valid domain");
        }

        $this->domain = $args[0];
    }
}

You can now register this rule.:

$ruleExtensionRegistry->registerRule(new EmailDomainRule);

If you're using the skeleton project, do this registration in the Project\Application\Bootstrappers\Validation\ValidatorBootstrapper::registerRuleExtensions() method. You could also add a custom error message to resources/lang/en/validation.php. The rule we created defined an error placeholder "domain", which we can use in our error message:

return [
    // ...Other error message templates
    'domain' => 'The :field did not belong to the :domain domain'
];

To use the extension, simply call $validator->field("FIELD_NAME")->{slug}():

$validator->field('some-email-address')
    ->emailDomain('gmail.com');
Using Callables

When registering a callable, you must give it a slug:

$rule = function ($value, array $allValues = []) {
    return $value == 'Dave';
};
$ruleExtensionRegistry->registerRule($rule, 'coolName');
$validator->field('name')
    ->coolName();

Halting Validation

Sometimes, you may want to stop validating a field after its first rule failure. Simply pass true to the second parameter in Validator::isValid():

$validator->field('email')
    ->required()
    ->email();
$validator->isValid(['email' => null], true);

In this example, because the "email" field was null, it fails the "required" rule. This means the "email" rule will never be run.

Error Messages

Calling Validator::getErrors() after Validator::isValid() will return an Opulence\Validation\Rules\Errors\ErrorCollection with any error messages from validation.

To grab all errors, use:

$validator->getErrors()->getAll();

To get a specific field's error message, use:

$validator->getErrors()->get('FIELD_NAME');

Error message templates are bound to a slug in the Opulence\Validation\Rules\Errors\ErrorTemplateRegistry:

use Opulence\Validation\Rules\Errors\ErrorTemplateRegistry;

$errorTemplateRegistry = new ErrorTemplateRegistry();
$errorTemplateRegistry->registerErrorTemplatesFromConfig([
    'required' => 'The :field input is required',
    'email.required' => 'We need your email address'
]);

All "required" rules that fail will now have the first error message. Specifying email.required will override the global error message for "required" rules, but only for the "email" field. :field will automatically be populated with the name of the field that failed.

Error Message Placeholders

You can specify placeholders in your error messages using :NAME_OF_PLACEHOLDER. If your rule needs to specify placeholder values, it should also implement IRuleWithErrorPlaceholders. In the getErrorPlaceholders() method, you can return a keyed array with the placeholder-name => placeholder-value mappings.

Let's take a look at an example of a rule that checks if an input date falls on a particular day (numbered 0-6):

namespace MyApp\Validation\Rules;

use DateTime;
use Opulence\Validation\Rules\IRuleWithArgs;
use Opulence\Validation\Rules\IRuleWithErrorPlaceholders;

class DayRule implements IRuleWithArgs, IRuleWithErrorPlaceholders
{
    private $comparisonDay = null;

    public function getErrorPlaceholders() : array
    {
        $dayName = DateTime::createFromFormat('!N', $this->comparisonDay)->format('l');

        return ['day' => $dayName];
    }

    public function getSlug() : string
    {
        return 'day';
    }

    public function passes($value, array $allValues = []) : bool
    {
        return (new DateTime($value))->format('N') == $this->comparisonDay;
    }

    public function setArgs(array $args)
    {
        $this->comparisonDay = $args[0];
    }
}

We can then bind an error message to the rule:

$errorTemplateRegistry->registerGlobalErrorTemplate('day', 'Selected day must be a :day');

Now, whenever our rule fails, the nicely-formatted day name will appear in the error message, eg "Selected day must be a Monday".

Validating Form Input

First, set up your rules for your fields:

$validator->field('first-name')
    ->required();
$validator->field('last-name')
    ->required();

Then, if you're using Opulence's HTTP request wrapper, call:

$validator->isValid($request->getPost()->getAll());

Note: You can also pass in $request->getQuery()->getAll().

If you aren't using Opulence's HTTP request wrapper, you can pass any of the PHP super globals to the validator:

$validator->isValid($_POST);

Validating Models

You can validate your models with Opulence's validation library. One easy way is to extend Opulence\Validation\Models\ModelState. It contains two abstract methods:

Let's take a look at an example user model state:

namespace MyApp\Validation\Models;

use Opulence\Validation\Models\ModelState;

class UserModelState extends ModelState
{
    protected function getModelProperties($model) : array
    {
        return [
            'id' => $model->getId(),
            'name' => $model->getName(),
            'email' => $model->getEmail()
        ];
    }

    protected function registerFields(IValidator $validator)
    {
        $validator->field('id')
            ->integer();
        $validator->field('name')
            ->required();
        $validator->field('email')
            ->email();
    }
}

Now, let's check if a user model is valid:

use MyApp\User;

// We will assume that $validatorFactory was already instantiated
$user = new User(123, 'Dave', 'foo@bar.com');
$modelState = new UserModelState($user, $validatorFactory);

if (!$modelState->isValid()) {
    print_r($modelState->getErrors()->getAll());
}

Note: ModelState::getErrors() returns an instance of ErrorCollection.

Skeleton Project Examples

Error Message Configuration

If you're using the skeleton project, you will find some default error message templates in config/resources/lang/en/validation.php. You are free to edit them as you'd like.

The skeleton project comes with Project\Bootstrappers\Validation\ValidatorBootstrapper, which sets your default error message templates and registers your custom rules. It also binds the validator factory to the IoC container. If you'd like to use validators in your controllers or console commands, simply inject IValidatorFactory via the controller and command constructors, respectively:

Controller Example

use Opulence\Validation\Factories\IValidatorFactory;

class MyController
{
    private $validatorFactory = null;

    public function __construct(IValidatorFactory $validatorFactory)
    {
        $this->validatorFactory = $validatorFactory;
    }

    public function login()
    {
        $validator = $this->validatorFactory->createValidator();
        // You can now use $validator to validate input
    }
}

Console Command Example

use Opulence\Console\Commands\Command;
use Opulence\Console\Responses\IResponse;
use Opulence\Validation\Factories\IValidatorFactory;

class MyCommand extends command
{
    private $validatorFactory = null;

    public function __construct(IValidatorFactory $validatorFactory)
    {
        parent::__construct();

        $this->validatorFactory = $validatorFactory;
    }

    protected function define()
    {
        $this->setName('my:command')
            ->setDescription('My command that uses validation');
    }

    protected function doExecute(IResponse $response)
    {
        $validator = $this->validatorFactory->createValidator();
        // You can now use $validator to validate input
    }
}

Built-In Rules

The following rules are built into Opulence: