The validator object

This is the class that will be instantiated to perform validation

use Sirius\Validation\RuleFactory;
use Sirius\Validation\ErrorMessage;
use Sirius\Validation\Validator;

$ruleFactory = new RuleFactory;
$errorMessagePrototype = new ErrorMessage;
$validator = new Validator($ruleFactory, $errorMessagePrototype);

$validatorFactory and $errorMessagePrototype are optional, they have a default value. See RuleFactory and ErrorMessage for details

Add validation rules

These are just instructions for the RuleFactory to create the actual rules

// syntax
$validator->add($selector, $name = null, $options = null, $messageTemplate = null, $label = null);

// examples
$validator->add('username', 'required');
$validator->add('password', 'minLength', ['min' => 6];, '{label} must have at least {min} characters', 'Password');
$validator->add('additional_emails[*]', 'email', array(), 'Email address is not valid');

Be sure to check the syntactic sugar options to reduce the verbosity.

$selector

Is the path to the value(s) that will be validated with the rule

$name

The $name must either:

  1. the name of a rule registered with the RuleFactory
  2. the name of a class within the Sirius\Validation\Rule namespace (eg: `Email', 'MinLength')
  3. the name of a class that extends the Sirius\Vaidation\Rule\AbstractRule class
  4. a callable entity (function, object method or static method) (eg: $validator->add('username', 'MyClass::validateUsername', null, 'Username is already taken')).
$options

The $options variable represents the configuration options for the validators or additional parameters for the callback. It can be:

  1. an array
  2. a JSON string: {"min": 100, "max": 200}
  3. a URL query string: min=100&max=200
  4. a CSV string: 100,200 (this requires the validation rule class has the optionsIndexMap array properly set up)
$messageTemplate

The $messageTemplate is the message that will be associated with an item when the validation fails. Each validator has it's own default error message so you don't have to provide it.

$label

The $label is the label associated with the field. The most useful error messages are those that contain the name of the field so this will come very handy.

Validate data

$validationResult = $validator->validate($_POST); // TRUE or FALSE
$messages = $validator->getMessages(); // array with all error messages
$emailErrorMessages = $validator->getMessages('email'); // error messages for the email address

If for whatever reason you need to manually set error messages you can do it like so

$validator->addMessage('email', 'This value should be an email address');

and clear them

$validator->clearMessages();

Anytime you execute $validator->validate($values) the validation messages are cleared (even those set manually).