Validation

ORM models are tightly integrated with the [Validation] library and the module comes with a very flexible [ORM_Validation_Exception] that helps you quickly handle validation errors from basic CRUD operations.

Defining Rules

Validation rules are defined in the ORM::rules() method. This method returns the array of rules to be added to the [Validation] object like so:

public function rules()
{
	return array(
		'username' => array(
			// Uses Valid::not_empty($value);
			array('not_empty'),
			// Calls Some_Class::some_method('param1', 'param2');
			array('Some_Class::some_method', array('param1', 'param2')),
			// Calls A_Class::a_method($value);
			array(array('A_Class', 'a_method')),
			// Calls the lambda function and passes the field value and the validation object
			array(function($value, Validation $object)
			{
				$object->error('some_field', 'some_error');
			}, array(':value', ':validation')),
		),
	);
}

Bound Values

ORM will automatically bind the following values with Validation::bind():

• :field - The name of the field the rule is being applied to.
• :value - The value of the field the rule is being applied to.
• :model - The instance of the model that is being validated.

Automatic Validation

All models automatically validate their own data when ORM::save(), ORM::update(), or ORM::create() is called. Because of this, you should always expect these methods to throw an [ORM_Validation_Exception] when the model’s data is invalid.

public function action_create()
{
	try
	{
		$user = ORM::factory('User');
		$user->username = 'invalid username';
		$user->save();
	}
	catch (ORM_Validation_Exception $e)
	{
		$errors = $e->errors();
	}
}

Handling Validation Exceptions

The [ORM_Validation_Exception] will give you access to the validation errors that were encountered while trying to save a model’s information. The ORM_Validation_Exception::errors() method works very similarly to Validation::errors(). Not passing a first parameter will return the name of the rules that failed. But unlike Validate::errors(), the first parameter of ORM_Validation_Exception::errors() is a directory path. The model’s ORM::$_object_name will be appended to the directory in order to form the message file for Validation::errors() to use. The second parameter is identical to that of Validation::errors().

In the below example, the error messages will be defined in application/messages/models/user.php

public function action_create()
{
	try
	{
		$user = ORM::factory('User');
		$user->username = 'invalid username';
		$user->save();
	}
	catch (ORM_Validation_Exception $e)
	{
		$errors = $e->errors('models');
	}
}

External Validation

Certain forms contain information that should not be validated by the model, but by the controller. Information such as a CSRF token, password verification, or a CAPTCHA should never be validated by a model. However, validating information in multiple places and combining the errors to provide the user with a good experience is often quite tedius. For this reason, the [ORM_Validation_Exception] is built to handle multiple Validation objects and namespaces the array of errors automatically for you. ORM::save(), ORM::update(), and ORM::create() all take an optional first parameter which is a [Validation] object to validate along with the model.

public function action_create()
{
	try
	{
		$user = ORM::factory('User');
		$user->username = $_POST['username'];
		$user->password = $_POST['password'];

		$extra_rules = Validation::factory($_POST)
			->rule('password_confirm', 'matches', array(
				':validation', ':field', 'password'
			));

		// Pass the extra rules to be validated with the model
		$user->save($extra_rules);
	}
	catch (ORM_Validation_Exception $e)
	{
		$errors = $e->errors('models');
	}
}

Because the validation object was passed as a parameter to the model, any errors found in that check will be namespaced into a sub-array called _external. The array of errors would look something like this:

array(
	'username'  => 'This field cannot be empty.',
	'_external' => array(
		'password_confirm' => 'The values you entered in the password fields did not match.',
	),
);

This ensures that errors from multiple validation objects and models will never overwrite each other.

[!!] The power of the [ORM_Validation_Exception] can be leveraged in many different ways to merge errors from related models. Take a look at the list of Examples for some great use cases.