Validator Component

This component is based on the JSR-303 Bean Validation specification and enables specifying validation rules for classes using XML, YAML, PHP or annotations, which can then be checked against instances of these classes.

Usage

The component provides "validation constraints", which are simple objects containing the rules for the validation. Let's validate a simple string as an example:

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Validation;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\Length;

$validator = Validation::createValidator();

$violations = $validator->validateValue('Bernhard', new Length(array('min' => 10)));

This validation will fail because the given string is shorter than ten characters. The precise errors, here called "constraint violations", are returned by the validator. You can analyze these or return them to the user. If the violation list is empty, validation succeeded.

Validation of arrays is possible using the Collection constraint:

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Validation;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

$validator = Validation::createValidator();

$constraint = new Assert\Collection(array(
    'name' => new Assert\Collection(array(
        'first_name' => new Assert\Length(array('min' => 101)),
        'last_name'  => new Assert\Length(array('min' => 1)),
    )),
    'email'    => new Assert\Email(),
    'simple'   => new Assert\Length(array('min' => 102)),
    'gender'   => new Assert\Choice(array(3, 4)),
    'file'     => new Assert\File(),
    'password' => new Assert\Length(array('min' => 60)),
));

$violations = $validator->validateValue($input, $constraint);

Again, the validator returns the list of violations.

Validation of objects is possible using "constraint mapping". With such a mapping you can put constraints onto properties and objects of classes. Whenever an object of this class is validated, its properties and method results are matched against the constraints.

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Validation;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

class User
{
    /**
     * @Assert\Length(min = 3)
     * @Assert\NotBlank
     */
    private $name;

    /**
     * @Assert\Email
     * @Assert\NotBlank
     */
    private $email;

    public function __construct($name, $email)
    {
        $this->name = $name;
        $this->email = $email;
    }

    /**
     * @Assert\True(message = "The user should have a Google Mail account")
     */
    public function isGmailUser()
    {
        return false !== strpos($this->email, '@gmail.com');
    }
}

$validator = Validation::createValidatorBuilder()
    ->enableAnnotationMapping()
    ->getValidator();

$user = new User('John Doe', '[email protected]');

$violations = $validator->validate($user);

This example uses the annotation support of Doctrine Common to map constraints to properties and methods. You can also map constraints using XML, YAML or plain PHP, if you dislike annotations or don't want to include Doctrine. Check the documentation for more information about these drivers.

Resources

Silex integration:

https://github.com/fabpot/Silex/blob/master/src/Silex/Provider/ValidatorServiceProvider.php

Documentation:

http://symfony.com/doc/2.5/book/validation.html

JSR-303 Specification:

http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=303

You can run the unit tests with the following command:

$ cd path/to/Symfony/Component/Validator/
$ composer.phar install
$ phpunit