22 KiB
ozzo-validation
Description
ozzo-validation is a Go package that provides configurable and extensible data validation capabilities. It has the following features:
- use normal programming constructs rather than error-prone struct tags to specify how data should be validated.
- can validate data of different types, e.g., structs, strings, byte slices, slices, maps, arrays.
- can validate custom data types as long as they implement the
Validatableinterface. - can validate data types that implement the
sql.Valuerinterface (e.g.sql.NullString). - customizable and well-formatted validation errors.
- provide a rich set of validation rules right out of box.
- extremely easy to create and use custom validation rules.
Requirements
Go 1.8 or above.
Getting Started
The ozzo-validation package mainly includes a set of validation rules and two validation methods. You use
validation rules to describe how a value should be considered valid, and you call either validation.Validate()
or validation.ValidateStruct() to validate the value.
Installation
Run the following command to install the package:
go get github.com/go-ozzo/ozzo-validation
go get github.com/go-ozzo/ozzo-validation/is
Validating a Simple Value
For a simple value, such as a string or an integer, you may use validation.Validate() to validate it. For example,
package main
import (
"fmt"
"github.com/go-ozzo/ozzo-validation"
"github.com/go-ozzo/ozzo-validation/is"
)
func main() {
data := "example"
err := validation.Validate(data,
validation.Required, // not empty
validation.Length(5, 100), // length between 5 and 100
is.URL, // is a valid URL
)
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// must be a valid URL
}
The method validation.Validate() will run through the rules in the order that they are listed. If a rule fails
the validation, the method will return the corresponding error and skip the rest of the rules. The method will
return nil if the value passes all validation rules.
Validating a Struct
For a struct value, you usually want to check if its fields are valid. For example, in a RESTful application, you
may unmarshal the request payload into a struct and then validate the struct fields. If one or multiple fields
are invalid, you may want to get an error describing which fields are invalid. You can use validation.ValidateStruct()
to achieve this purpose. A single struct can have rules for multiple fields, and a field can be associated with multiple
rules. For example,
package main
import (
"fmt"
"regexp"
"github.com/go-ozzo/ozzo-validation"
"github.com/go-ozzo/ozzo-validation/is"
)
type Address struct {
Street string
City string
State string
Zip string
}
func (a Address) Validate() error {
return validation.ValidateStruct(&a,
// Street cannot be empty, and the length must between 5 and 50
validation.Field(&a.Street, validation.Required, validation.Length(5, 50)),
// City cannot be empty, and the length must between 5 and 50
validation.Field(&a.City, validation.Required, validation.Length(5, 50)),
// State cannot be empty, and must be a string consisting of two letters in upper case
validation.Field(&a.State, validation.Required, validation.Match(regexp.MustCompile("^[A-Z]{2}$"))),
// State cannot be empty, and must be a string consisting of five digits
validation.Field(&a.Zip, validation.Required, validation.Match(regexp.MustCompile("^[0-9]{5}$"))),
)
}
func main() {
a := Address{
Street: "123",
City: "Unknown",
State: "Virginia",
Zip: "12345",
}
err := a.Validate()
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// Street: the length must be between 5 and 50; State: must be in a valid format.
}
Note that when calling validation.ValidateStruct to validate a struct, you should pass to the method a pointer
to the struct instead of the struct itself. Similarly, when calling validation.Field to specify the rules
for a struct field, you should use a pointer to the struct field.
When the struct validation is performed, the fields are validated in the order they are specified in ValidateStruct.
And when each field is validated, its rules are also evaluated in the order they are associated with the field.
If a rule fails, an error is recorded for that field, and the validation will continue with the next field.
Validation Errors
The validation.ValidateStruct method returns validation errors found in struct fields in terms of validation.Errors
which is a map of fields and their corresponding errors. Nil is returned if validation passes.
By default, validation.Errors uses the struct tags named json to determine what names should be used to
represent the invalid fields. The type also implements the json.Marshaler interface so that it can be marshaled
into a proper JSON object. For example,
type Address struct {
Street string `json:"street"`
City string `json:"city"`
State string `json:"state"`
Zip string `json:"zip"`
}
// ...perform validation here...
err := a.Validate()
b, _ := json.Marshal(err)
fmt.Println(string(b))
// Output:
// {"street":"the length must be between 5 and 50","state":"must be in a valid format"}
You may modify validation.ErrorTag to use a different struct tag name.
If you do not like the magic that ValidateStruct determines error keys based on struct field names or corresponding
tag values, you may use the following alternative approach:
c := Customer{
Name: "Qiang Xue",
Email: "q",
Address: Address{
State: "Virginia",
},
}
err := validation.Errors{
"name": validation.Validate(c.Name, validation.Required, validation.Length(5, 20)),
"email": validation.Validate(c.Name, validation.Required, is.Email),
"zip": validation.Validate(c.Address.Zip, validation.Required, validation.Match(regexp.MustCompile("^[0-9]{5}$"))),
}.Filter()
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// email: must be a valid email address; zip: cannot be blank.
In the above example, we build a validation.Errors by a list of names and the corresponding validation results.
At the end we call Errors.Filter() to remove from Errors all nils which correspond to those successful validation
results. The method will return nil if Errors is empty.
The above approach is very flexible as it allows you to freely build up your validation error structure. You can use
it to validate both struct and non-struct values. Compared to using ValidateStruct to validate a struct,
it has the drawback that you have to redundantly specify the error keys while ValidateStruct can automatically
find them out.
Internal Errors
Internal errors are different from validation errors in that internal errors are caused by malfunctioning code (e.g. a validator making a remote call to validate some data when the remote service is down) rather than the data being validated. When an internal error happens during data validation, you may allow the user to resubmit the same data to perform validation again, hoping the program resumes functioning. On the other hand, if data validation fails due to data error, the user should generally not resubmit the same data again.
To differentiate internal errors from validation errors, when an internal error occurs in a validator, wrap it
into validation.InternalError by calling validation.NewInternalError(). The user of the validator can then check
if a returned error is an internal error or not. For example,
if err := a.Validate(); err != nil {
if e, ok := err.(validation.InternalError); ok {
// an internal error happened
fmt.Println(e.InternalError())
}
}
Validatable Types
A type is validatable if it implements the validation.Validatable interface.
When validation.Validate is used to validate a validatable value, if it does not find any error with the
given validation rules, it will further call the value's Validate() method.
Similarly, when validation.ValidateStruct is validating a struct field whose type is validatable, it will call
the field's Validate method after it passes the listed rules.
In the following example, the Address field of Customer is validatable because Address implements
validation.Validatable. Therefore, when validating a Customer struct with validation.ValidateStruct,
validation will "dive" into the Address field.
type Customer struct {
Name string
Gender string
Email string
Address Address
}
func (c Customer) Validate() error {
return validation.ValidateStruct(&c,
// Name cannot be empty, and the length must be between 5 and 20.
validation.Field(&c.Name, validation.Required, validation.Length(5, 20)),
// Gender is optional, and should be either "Female" or "Male".
validation.Field(&c.Gender, validation.In("Female", "Male")),
// Email cannot be empty and should be in a valid email format.
validation.Field(&c.Email, validation.Required, is.Email),
// Validate Address using its own validation rules
validation.Field(&c.Address),
)
}
c := Customer{
Name: "Qiang Xue",
Email: "q",
Address: Address{
Street: "123 Main Street",
City: "Unknown",
State: "Virginia",
Zip: "12345",
},
}
err := c.Validate()
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// Address: (State: must be in a valid format.); Email: must be a valid email address.
Sometimes, you may want to skip the invocation of a type's Validate method. To do so, simply associate
a validation.Skip rule with the value being validated.
Maps/Slices/Arrays of Validatables
When validating an iterable (map, slice, or array), whose element type implements the validation.Validatable interface,
the validation.Validate method will call the Validate method of every non-nil element.
The validation errors of the elements will be returned as validation.Errors which maps the keys of the
invalid elements to their corresponding validation errors. For example,
addresses := []Address{
Address{State: "MD", Zip: "12345"},
Address{Street: "123 Main St", City: "Vienna", State: "VA", Zip: "12345"},
Address{City: "Unknown", State: "NC", Zip: "123"},
}
err := validation.Validate(addresses)
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// 0: (City: cannot be blank; Street: cannot be blank.); 2: (Street: cannot be blank; Zip: must be in a valid format.).
When using validation.ValidateStruct to validate a struct, the above validation procedure also applies to those struct
fields which are map/slices/arrays of validatables.
Each
An other option is to use the validation.Each method.
This method allows you to define the rules for the iterables within a struct.
type Customer struct {
Name string
Emails []string
}
func (c Customer) Validate() error {
return validation.ValidateStruct(&c,
// Name cannot be empty, and the length must be between 5 and 20.
validation.Field(&c.Name, validation.Required, validation.Length(5, 20)),
// Emails are optional, but if given must be valid.
validation.Field(&c.Emails, validation.Each(is.Email)),
)
}
c := Customer{
Name: "Qiang Xue",
Emails: []Email{
"valid@example.com",
"invalid",
},
}
err := c.Validate()
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// Emails: (1: must be a valid email address.).
Pointers
When a value being validated is a pointer, most validation rules will validate the actual value pointed to by the pointer. If the pointer is nil, these rules will skip the validation.
An exception is the validation.Required and validation.NotNil rules. When a pointer is nil, they
will report a validation error.
Types Implementing sql.Valuer
If a data type implements the sql.Valuer interface (e.g. sql.NullString), the built-in validation rules will handle
it properly. In particular, when a rule is validating such data, it will call the Value() method and validate
the returned value instead.
Required vs. Not Nil
When validating input values, there are two different scenarios about checking if input values are provided or not.
In the first scenario, an input value is considered missing if it is not entered or it is entered as a zero value
(e.g. an empty string, a zero integer). You can use the validation.Required rule in this case.
In the second scenario, an input value is considered missing only if it is not entered. A pointer field is usually
used in this case so that you can detect if a value is entered or not by checking if the pointer is nil or not.
You can use the validation.NotNil rule to ensure a value is entered (even if it is a zero value).
Embedded Structs
The validation.ValidateStruct method will properly validate a struct that contains embedded structs. In particular,
the fields of an embedded struct are treated as if they belong directly to the containing struct. For example,
type Employee struct {
Name string
}
func ()
type Manager struct {
Employee
Level int
}
m := Manager{}
err := validation.ValidateStruct(&m,
validation.Field(&m.Name, validation.Required),
validation.Field(&m.Level, validation.Required),
)
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// Level: cannot be blank; Name: cannot be blank.
In the above code, we use &m.Name to specify the validation of the Name field of the embedded struct Employee.
And the validation error uses Name as the key for the error associated with the Name field as if Name a field
directly belonging to Manager.
If Employee implements the validation.Validatable interface, we can also use the following code to validate
Manager, which generates the same validation result:
func (e Employee) Validate() error {
return validation.ValidateStruct(&e,
validation.Field(&e.Name, validation.Required),
)
}
err := validation.ValidateStruct(&m,
validation.Field(&m.Employee),
validation.Field(&m.Level, validation.Required),
)
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// Level: cannot be blank; Name: cannot be blank.
Built-in Validation Rules
The following rules are provided in the validation package:
In(...interface{}): checks if a value can be found in the given list of values.Length(min, max int): checks if the length of a value is within the specified range. This rule should only be used for validating strings, slices, maps, and arrays.RuneLength(min, max int): checks if the length of a string is within the specified range. This rule is similar asLengthexcept that when the value being validated is a string, it checks its rune length instead of byte length.Min(min interface{})andMax(max interface{}): checks if a value is within the specified range. These two rules should only be used for validating int, uint, float and time.Time types.Match(*regexp.Regexp): checks if a value matches the specified regular expression. This rule should only be used for strings and byte slices.Date(layout string): checks if a string value is a date whose format is specified by the layout. By callingMin()and/orMax(), you can check additionally if the date is within the specified range.Required: checks if a value is not empty (neither nil nor zero).NotNil: checks if a pointer value is not nil. Non-pointer values are considered valid.NilOrNotEmpty: checks if a value is a nil pointer or a non-empty value. This differs fromRequiredin that it treats a nil pointer as valid.Skip: this is a special rule used to indicate that all rules following it should be skipped (including the nested ones).MultipleOf: checks if the value is a multiple of the specified range.Each(rules ...Rule): checks the elements within an iterable (map/slice/array) with other rules.
The is sub-package provides a list of commonly used string validation rules that can be used to check if the format
of a value satisfies certain requirements. Note that these rules only handle strings and byte slices and if a string
or byte slice is empty, it is considered valid. You may use a Required rule to ensure a value is not empty.
Below is the whole list of the rules provided by the is package:
Email: validates if a string is an email or notURL: validates if a string is a valid URLRequestURL: validates if a string is a valid request URLRequestURI: validates if a string is a valid request URIAlpha: validates if a string contains English letters only (a-zA-Z)Digit: validates if a string contains digits only (0-9)Alphanumeric: validates if a string contains English letters and digits only (a-zA-Z0-9)UTFLetter: validates if a string contains unicode letters onlyUTFDigit: validates if a string contains unicode decimal digits onlyUTFLetterNumeric: validates if a string contains unicode letters and numbers onlyUTFNumeric: validates if a string contains unicode number characters (category N) onlyLowerCase: validates if a string contains lower case unicode letters onlyUpperCase: validates if a string contains upper case unicode letters onlyHexadecimal: validates if a string is a valid hexadecimal numberHexColor: validates if a string is a valid hexadecimal color codeRGBColor: validates if a string is a valid RGB color in the form of rgb(R, G, B)Int: validates if a string is a valid integer numberFloat: validates if a string is a floating point numberUUIDv3: validates if a string is a valid version 3 UUIDUUIDv4: validates if a string is a valid version 4 UUIDUUIDv5: validates if a string is a valid version 5 UUIDUUID: validates if a string is a valid UUIDCreditCard: validates if a string is a valid credit card numberISBN10: validates if a string is an ISBN version 10ISBN13: validates if a string is an ISBN version 13ISBN: validates if a string is an ISBN (either version 10 or 13)JSON: validates if a string is in valid JSON formatASCII: validates if a string contains ASCII characters onlyPrintableASCII: validates if a string contains printable ASCII characters onlyMultibyte: validates if a string contains multibyte charactersFullWidth: validates if a string contains full-width charactersHalfWidth: validates if a string contains half-width charactersVariableWidth: validates if a string contains both full-width and half-width charactersBase64: validates if a string is encoded in Base64DataURI: validates if a string is a valid base64-encoded data URIE164: validates if a string is a valid E164 phone number (+19251232233)CountryCode2: validates if a string is a valid ISO3166 Alpha 2 country codeCountryCode3: validates if a string is a valid ISO3166 Alpha 3 country codeDialString: validates if a string is a valid dial string that can be passed to Dial()MAC: validates if a string is a MAC addressIP: validates if a string is a valid IP address (either version 4 or 6)IPv4: validates if a string is a valid version 4 IP addressIPv6: validates if a string is a valid version 6 IP addressSubdomain: validates if a string is valid subdomainDomain: validates if a string is valid domainDNSName: validates if a string is valid DNS nameHost: validates if a string is a valid IP (both v4 and v6) or a valid DNS namePort: validates if a string is a valid port numberMongoID: validates if a string is a valid Mongo IDLatitude: validates if a string is a valid latitudeLongitude: validates if a string is a valid longitudeSSN: validates if a string is a social security number (SSN)Semver: validates if a string is a valid semantic version
Customizing Error Messages
All built-in validation rules allow you to customize error messages. To do so, simply call the Error() method
of the rules. For example,
data := "2123"
err := validation.Validate(data,
validation.Required.Error("is required"),
validation.Match(regexp.MustCompile("^[0-9]{5}$")).Error("must be a string with five digits"),
)
fmt.Println(err)
// Output:
// must be a string with five digits
Creating Custom Rules
Creating a custom rule is as simple as implementing the validation.Rule interface. The interface contains a single
method as shown below, which should validate the value and return the validation error, if any:
// Validate validates a value and returns an error if validation fails.
Validate(value interface{}) error
If you already have a function with the same signature as shown above, you can call validation.By() to turn
it into a validation rule. For example,
func checkAbc(value interface{}) error {
s, _ := value.(string)
if s != "abc" {
return errors.New("must be abc")
}
return nil
}
err := validation.Validate("xyz", validation.By(checkAbc))
fmt.Println(err)
// Output: must be abc
If your validation function takes additional parameters, you can use the following closure trick:
func stringEquals(str string) validation.RuleFunc {
return func(value interface{}) error {
s, _ := value.(string)
if s != str {
return errors.New("unexpected string")
}
return nil
}
}
err := validation.Validate("xyz", validation.By(stringEquals("abc")))
fmt.Println(err)
// Output: unexpected string
Rule Groups
When a combination of several rules are used in multiple places, you may use the following trick to create a rule group so that your code is more maintainable.
var NameRule = []validation.Rule{
validation.Required,
validation.Length(5, 20),
}
type User struct {
FirstName string
LastName string
}
func (u User) Validate() error {
return validation.ValidateStruct(&u,
validation.Field(&u.FirstName, NameRule...),
validation.Field(&u.LastName, NameRule...),
)
}
In the above example, we create a rule group NameRule which consists of two validation rules. We then use this rule
group to validate both FirstName and LastName.
Credits
The is sub-package wraps the excellent validators provided by the govalidator package.