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Validation

Validation

Rejoice has made it very easy to validate the user sent on each particular menu. You can validate directly inside the menu flow in the resources/menus/menu.php file or validate in the menu class.

In the menu class

Using your custom validation logic 

class EnterAge extends Menu
{
    public function validate($response)
    {
        $age = intval($response);

        if ($age < 5 || $age > 150) {
            return false;
        }

        return true;
    }
}

You can modify the default error message:

class EnterAge extends Menu
{
    public function validate($response)
    {
        $age = intval($response);

        if ($age < 5) {
            $this->addError('You must be more than 5 years to continue');

            return false;
        } elseif ($age > 150) {
            $this->addError('You must be less than 150 years to continue');

            return false;
        }

        return true;
    }
}

You can also use $this->setError(), which will overwrite any previous error.

A more advisable way to validate will be as follow because an error can also be defined somewhere else by the framework itself (especially if you specify a validate parameter for the same menu in the menus.php file):

class EnterAge extends Menu
{
    public function validate($response)
    {
        $age = intval($response);

        if ($age < 5) {
            $this->addError('You must be more than 5 years to continue');
        } elseif ($age > 150) {
            $this->addError('You must be less than 150 years to continue');
        }

        return empty($this->error());
    }
}

Using the user response validator instance

The user response validator is actually the class that the framework uses to automatically validate the response when you specify the validation rules in the menus.php. You can also use the same class inside your validate method:

// Import the class
use Rejoice\UserResponseValidator as Validator;

class EnterAge extends Menu
{
  public function validate($response)
  {
      $rules = 'integer|min:5|max:150';

      return Validator::validate($response, $rules);
  }
}

Or with the custom error messages:

use Rejoice\UserResponseValidator as Validator;

class EnterAge extends Menu
{
    public function validate($response)
    {
        $rules = [
            'integer',
            ['min:5', 'You must be more than 5 years to continue'],
            ['max:150', 'You must be less than 150 years to continue'],
        ];

        return Validator::validate($response, $rules);
    }
}

Or

use Rejoice\UserResponseValidator as Validator;

class EnterAge extends Menu
{
    public function validate($response)
    {
        $rules = [
            'integer',
            [
                'rule' => 'min:5',
                'error' => 'You must be more than 5 years to continue'
            ],
            [
                'rule' => 'max:150',
                'error' => 'You must be less than 150 years to continue'
            ],
        ];

        return Validator::validate($response, $rules);
    }
}

Or

use Rejoice\UserResponseValidator as Validator;

class EnterAge extends Menu
{
    public function validate($response)
    {
        $rules = [
            'integer',
            'min:5' => 'You must be more than 5 years to continue',
            'max:150' => 'You must be less than 150 years to continue',
        ];

        return Validator::validate($response, $rules);
    }
}

Or We can be less verbose by directly returning only the rules:

// No need to import the validator class

class EnterAge extends Menu
{
    public function validate($response)
    {
        return [
            'integer',
            'min:5' => 'You must be more than 5 years to continue',
            'max:150' => 'You must be less than 150 years to continue',
        ];
    }
}
An empty validation rule will throw a `RuntimeException`.

In the menu flow 

// resources/menus/menus.php
return [

    'enter_age' => [
        'message'           => 'Enter your age',
        'validate'          => 'integer|min:5|max:150'
        'default_next_menu' => 'retrieve_birth_year',
    ]
];

On the previous example, if the user input 0, they will go back, if not any other input will be validated against the rules specified in the validate parameter of the menu.

Whatever action is specified in the actions parameter has the priority over the any other input the user may send.

Those values are not checked in the validating process because the are self-validating, meaning the user has to input them exactly as they are. Only the values that the developer does not have a control over, will be validated (like the name of the user; the user can send a number at the place of their name.)

Validation rules

Some rules accept parameters. You specify the parameter by following the rule with colon (:) and the value of the parameter.

In the case a rule requires multiple variables, you can pass the variables by seperating them with a comma (,). This means, you cannot pass a colon or a comma as argument to a rule. If you are required to pass a colon or a comma as argument, you must create a custom validation inside the menu class.

You can combine several rules by separating them with a pipe (|). These are the default rules you can use:

The rules can be camelCase, snake_case, PascalCase or even kebab-case. For example, you can use ‘maxLength’, ‘max_length’, ‘MaxLength’ or even ‘max-length’.

alphabetic

Check if the string contains only letters

return [

  'enter_name' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your name',
        'validate' => 'alpha' // or 'validate' => 'alphabetic'
    ]
];

minLength

Takes the minimum length required as parameter.

return [

  'enter_name' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your name',
        'validate' => 'alpha|minLength:3'
    ]
];
You can use `minLength` or `minLen`.

maxLength

Takes the maximum length required as parameter.

return [

  'enter_name' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your name',
        'validate' => 'alpha|maxLength:30'
    ]
];
You can use `maxLength`, `maxLen`.

integer 

return [

  'enter_age' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your age',
        'validate' => 'integer'
    ]
];

min 

return [

  'enter_age' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your age',
        'validate' => 'integer|min:10'
    ]
];

The min rule is related to numbers. To validate minimum length of a string, use min_len.

max 

return [

  'enter_age' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your age',
        'validate' => 'integer|max:50'
    ]
];

The max rule is related to numbers. To validate the maximum length of a string, use max_len.

float 

return [

  'enter_length' => [
        'message' => 'Enter the desired length',
        'validate' => 'float'
    ]
];
The rules `min` and `max` also work for float values.
return [

  'enter_length' => [
        'message' => 'Enter the desired length',
        'validate' => 'float|min:1.55|max:70.95'
    ]
];

amount 

return [

  'choose_option_screen' => [
        'message' => 'Select an option',
        'validate' => 'amount'
    ]
];

The validation amount is just a compilation of float|min:0.

name 

return [

  'enter_name' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your name',
        'validate' => 'name'
    ]
];

The validation name is a compilation of alpha|min_len:3|max_len:50.

age 

return [

  'enter_age' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your age',
        'validate' => 'age'
    ]
];

The validation age is a compilation of integer|min:0|max:100.

alphanumeric 

return [

  'enter_passport_number' => [
        'message' => 'Kindly enter your passport number',
        'validate' => 'alphanum' // or'validate' => 'alphanumeric'
    ]
];
To validate alphanumeric, the response is validate against this regular expression: /(\W?\w)+/

date

The date validation takes the format of the date as argument. If no format is passed, the default format j/n/Y is used.

return [

  'enter_date' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your date of birth',
        'validate' => 'date:d/m/Y'
    ]
];
The format must be a valid PHP date format.
The default format (j/n/Y) accepts dates like '1/5/2025', '07/6/2030', etc. (The date and month do not need the '0' at their begining.)
In case you need to perform some calculation on the date, like check if the date is too old or too far from another date, you can use the methods in the Date Utilities class to perform the validation inside the menu class.

tel

Checks if the response is a valid telephone number.

return [

  'enter_date' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your date of birth',
        'validate' => 'date:d/m/Y'
    ]
];

Due to the various way a telephone number can be specified, this does not check if the phone number is a real phone number. But rather just check it against the general format of phone numbers, meaning the number can start with the ‘+’ sign or ‘00’, must contain only digits, parenthesis, spaces or hyphens, must be longer than 7 digits and shorter than 15 digits. You can use the internationaliseNumber method of the Str utils class to format the number to the specific country’s phone number pattern.’

regex

You can use a regular expression to define your own rule.

return [

  'enter_name' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your name starting by with your title (Mrs/Mr)',
        'validate' => 'regex:/^Mrs? [a-z]{3,50}/i'
    ]
];

The regex must be enclosed in delimiters (/ in the regex above). It allows you to easily add flags (notice the case-insensitive flag i in the regex above)

string

Check if the response is a string. It is the validation that is applied by default. When using the framework for a USSD application, there is no need to specify this validation. It is done automatically by the framework. It will become iseful when using the framwork outside the scope of a USSD application.


return [

  'enter_name' => [
        'message' => 'Enter your name',
        'validate' => 'string'
   ]
];

Always remember that anytime you find yourself defining validation on a menu, the menu must have a default next menu configured.