README

Server side form validation FTW

Basic usage

First require biohzrdmx/validator-php with Composer.

Then import the namespace, create a new Validator instance, add your validation rules and call the validate method:

# Import namespace
use Validator\Validator;

# Create a validator instance and add some rules
$validator = Validator::newInstance()
  ->addRule('name', $name)
  ->addRule('email', $email, 'email')
  ->addRule('password', $password)
  ->addRule('confirm', $confirm, 'equal', $password)
  ->validate();

# And check the result
if (! $validator->isValid() ) {
  $errors = $validator->getErrors();
  foreach ($errors as $error) {
    echo $error->message;
  }
}

The isValid method will return false if something isn't right and true if all your rules passed.

In case of failure you may call the getErrors method which will return an array of objects with a name and a message field so that you can inform the user why the validation failed.

Adding rules

To add a validation rule you must call the addRule method, which has the following signature:

addRule($name, $value, $type = 'required', $opt = null) { ... }

The $name parameter identifies the rule and will be used for error reporting, while the $value refers to the variable you want to check.

$opt allows you to pass extra data, depending on the value of $type, which is explained below.

Rule types

You may specify any of the following built-in rule types for $type:

required - A required field, the rule will fail if it is null or empty
email - An email field, checked against W3C's regular expression for email fields in browsers
regex - A field checked against a regular expression, pass the expression in $opt
equal - A field that must be equal to another, pass the other field's value in $opt
checkboxes - Intended for checkboxes, for the rule to succeed, its value must be a non-empty array
at least - Intended for checkboxes, for the rule to succeed, its value must be a non-empty array with at least n items inside. Pass the desired quantity in $opt
at most - Intended for checkboxes, for the rule to succeed, its value must be an array with at most n items inside. Pass the desired quantity in $opt

Custom rules

There are two ways of adding custom rules, the first and easiest is to just pass a Closure as the rule opt:

$validator->addRule('Name', $name, 'custom', function($value) {
  # We do not accept Homers
  return $name != 'Homer';
});

The function receives the $value and must return true or false as the result of your validation, anything that is not true will make the rule fail.

This is recommended for one-off validation rules.

The second way is intended for validation rules that you will use in more than one place and/or require a complex logic. To do so, you will need to create a class that extends Rule and implements the check method:

class CustomRule extends Rule {

  public function check() {
    $ret = $name != 'Homer';
    if (! $ret ) {
      $message = sprintf('We do not accept Homers');
      throw new ValidationException($this, $message);
    }
    return $ret;
  }
}

Note that you must throw a ValidationException when the validation fails AND return either true or false as in the above case.

Now that you've created your rule class, just pass its name as the rule type:

$validator->addRule('Name', $name, CustomRule::class);

As you can see, custom validation classes provide more control as you may also specify a failure message.

You may also pass an extra $opt parameter that the rule will store in its own $opt member.

Licensing

This software is released under the MIT license.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Credits

Lead coder: biohzrdmx github.com/biohzrdmx

biohzrdmx / validator-php

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