Respect Validation

Respect\Validation is the most awesome validation engine ever created for PHP. Featuring:

• Fluent/Chained builders like v::numeric()->positive()->between(1, 256)->validate($myNumber) (more samples below)
• Composite validation (nested, grouped and related rules)
• Informative, awesome exceptions
• More than 30 fully tested validators
• PHP 5.3 only
• Possible integration with Zend 2.0 and Symfony 2.0 validators

Roadmap

1. Validation message improvements (translation, contextualization)
2. Custom validators (create your own validation rules and exceptions)
3. PHPDocs for all classes, methods and files
4. End user complete docs

Installation

CAUTION, this is not ready for production! Use it just for fun until a stable version comes out.

1. PEAR Package

   Respect\Validation is available under a downloadable PEAR Package. To use it, type the following commands in your terminal:

    git clone git://github.com/Respect/Validation.git RespectValidation
    cd RespectValidation/library/Respect/Validation/
    sudo pear install package.xml 
   

   On Ubuntu, this will install it under /usr/share/php, make sure you add that to your include_path.

2. Direct Download

   Just click "Download" up there, in GitHub and use the library folder.

Autoloading

You can set up Respect\Validation for autoloading. We recommend using the SplClassLoader. Here's a nice sample:

set_include_path('/my/library' . PATH_SEPARATOR . get_include_path());
require_once 'SplClassLoader.php';
$respectLoader = new \SplClassLoader();
$respectLoader->register();

Running Tests

We didn't created hundreds of tests just for us to apreciate. To run them, you'll need phpunit 3.5 or greater. Then, just chdir into the /tests folder we distribute and run them like this:

cd /my/RespectValidation/tests
phpunit .

You can tweak the phpunit.xml under that /tests folder to your needs.

Feature Guide

Namespace import

Respect\Validation is namespaced, but you can make your life easier by importing a single class into your context:

<?php
use Respect\Validation\Validator as v;

Simple validation

The Hello World validator is something like this:

$number = 123;
v::numeric()->validate($number); //true

Chained validation

It is possible to group and chain several validators:

//From 1 to 15 non-whitespace alphanumeric characters 
$validUsername = v::alnum()
                  ->noWhitespace()
                  ->length(1,15);

$validUsername->validate('alganet'); //true

Validating object attributes

You can validate attributes of objects or keys of arrays and its values too:

$validUser = v::attribute('username', $validUsername)    //reusing!
              ->attribute('birthdate', v::date('Y-m-d'));

$user = new \stdClass;
$user->username = 'alganet';
$user->birthdate = '1987-07-01';

$validUser->validate($user); //true

Validator reuse (works on nested, big validators too!)

Once created, you can reuse your validator anywhere:

$validUsername->validate('respect');            //true
$validUsername->validate('alexandre gaigalas'); //false 
$validUsername->validate('#$%');                //false 

Cool, informative exceptions

Respect\Validation produces a tree of validation messages that reflects the groups, nests and composite validators you declared. The following code:

try {
    $validUsername->assert('really messed up screen#name');
} catch(\InvalidArgumentException $e) {
   echo $e->getFullMessage();
}

Produces this message:

\-All of the 3 required rules must pass
  |-"really messed up screen#name" must contain only letters (a-z), digits (0-9) and "_"
  |-"really messed up screen#name" must not contain whitespace
  \-"really messed up screen#name" must have a length between 1 and 15

Validation Methods

There are three different ways to validate something:

$validUsername->validate('alganet'); //returns true or false (quicker)
$validUsername->check('alganet');    //throws only the first error found (quicker)
$validUsername->assert('alganet');   //throws all of the errors found (slower)

Message finding on nested Exceptions

Nested exceptions are cool, but sometimes you need to retrieve a single message from the validator. In these cases you can use the findRelated() method. Consider the following scenario:

$validBlogPost = v::object()
                  ->attribute('title',  v::string()->length(1,32))
                  ->attribute('author', $validUser)                 //reuse!
                  ->attribute('date',   v::date())
                  ->attribute('text',   v::string());

$blogPost = new \stdClass;
$blogPost->author = clone $validUser;
$blogPost->author->username = '# invalid #';

Then, the following validation code:

try {
    $validBlogPost->assert($blogPost);
} catch (\InvalidArgumentException $e) {
    echo $e->findRelated('author', 'username', 'noWhitespace')->getMainMessage();
}

Finds the specific noWhitespace message inside author->username and prints it:

"# invalid #" must not contain whitespace

Using Zend and/or Symfony validators

It is also possible to reuse validators from other frameworks (you need to put them in your autoload routines):

$validHostName = v::zend('hostname')->assert('google.com');
$validTime     = v::sf('time')->assert('22:00:01');

Quick Reference

A quick, possibly incomplete, list of validators and use reference:

Alphanumeric:

v::alnum()->assert('abc 123');
v::alnum('_|')->assert('a_bc _1|23');

Alpha chars:

v::alpha()->assert('ab c');
v::alpha('.')->assert('a. b.c');

Check if it is an array (works on every Traversable, Countable ArrayAccess):

v::arr()->assert(array());
v::arr()->assert(new \ArrayObject);

An attribute of an object ant its value:

$myObject = new \stdClass;
$myObject->foo = "bar";
v::attribute("foo", v::string())->assert($myObject);

Between (works on numbers, digits and dates):

v::between(5, 15)->assert(10);
v::between('a', 'f')->assert('b');

A value after a function call (works with closures):

v::call('implode', v::int())->assert(array(1, 2, 3, 4));

Validates using the return of a callback:

v::callback('is_string')->assert('something');

Dates and date formats:

v::date('Y-m-d')->assert('2010-10-10');
v::date()->assert('Jan 10 2008');

Strings with digits:

v::digits()->assert('02384');

Iterates and validates each element:

v::each(v::hexa())->assert(array('AF', 'D1', '09'));

Check for equality:

v::equals('foobar')->assert('foobar');

Float numbers

v::float()->assert(1.5);

Hexadecimals:

v::hexa()->assert('FAFAF');

Checks if a value is inside a set:

v::in(array(1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8))->assert(5);

Checks if an object is instance of a specific class or interface:

v::instance('\stdClass')->assert(new \stdClass);

Integer numbers:

v::int()->assert(1548);

IP addresses:

v::ip()->assert('200.226.220.222');

Length of strings, arrays or everything Countable:

v::length(5, 10)->assert('foobar');
v::length(5, 10)->assert(array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5));

Max and Min:

v::max(5)->assert(3);
v::min(5)->assert(7);

Positive and Negative:

v::negative()->assert(-5);
v::positive()->assert(3);

Whitespace, empty and null

v::noWhitespace()->assert('abc');
v::notEmpty()->assert('aaa');
v::nullValue()->assert(null);

Numeric values of all kinds:

v::numeric()->assert(1.56e-5);

Objects:

v::object()->assert(new \DateTime());

Regex evaluations:

v::regex('^[a-f]+$')->assert('abcdef');

Strings:

v::string()->assert('Hello World');

AllOf (checks all validators inside a composite):

v::allOf(
    v::string(), //any string v::length(5, 20), //between 5 and 20 chars
    v::noWhitespace()   //no whitespace allowed
)->assert('alganet');

v::string()
 ->length(5, 20)
 ->noWhitespace()
 ->assert('alganet');

OneOf (checks for one valid inside of a composite):

$v = v::oneOf(
    v::int()->positive(),   //positive integer or;
    v::float()->negative(), //negative float or; 
    v::nullValue()          //null
);
$v->assert(null); //true
$v->assert(12);   //true
$v->assert(-1.1); //true