.. index:: single: Validation; Custom constraints
You can create a custom constraint by extending the base constraint class, :class:`Symfony\\Component\\Validator\\Constraint`. As an example you're going to create a basic validator that checks if a string contains only alphanumeric characters.
First you need to create a Constraint class and extend :class:`Symfony\\Component\\Validator\\Constraint`:
// src/Validator/ContainsAlphanumeric.php namespace App\Validator; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraint; /** * @Annotation */ class ContainsAlphanumeric extends Constraint { public string $message = 'The string "{{ string }}" contains an illegal character: it can only contain letters or numbers.'; }
Note
The @Annotation
annotation is necessary for this new constraint
to make it available for use in classes via annotations.
Options for your constraint are represented as public properties on the
constraint class.
As you can see, a constraint class is fairly minimal. The actual validation is
performed by another "constraint validator" class. The constraint validator
class is specified by the constraint's validatedBy()
method, which
has this default logic:
// in the base Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraint class public function validatedBy() { return static::class.'Validator'; }
In other words, if you create a custom Constraint
(e.g. MyConstraint
),
Symfony will automatically look for another class, MyConstraintValidator
when actually performing the validation.
The validator class only has one required method validate()
:
// src/Validator/ContainsAlphanumericValidator.php namespace App\Validator; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraint; use Symfony\Component\Validator\ConstraintValidator; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Exception\UnexpectedTypeException; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Exception\UnexpectedValueException; class ContainsAlphanumericValidator extends ConstraintValidator { public function validate($value, Constraint $constraint): void { if (!$constraint instanceof ContainsAlphanumeric) { throw new UnexpectedTypeException($constraint, ContainsAlphanumeric::class); } // custom constraints should ignore null and empty values to allow // other constraints (NotBlank, NotNull, etc.) to take care of that if (null === $value || '' === $value) { return; } if (!is_string($value)) { // throw this exception if your validator cannot handle the passed type so that it can be marked as invalid throw new UnexpectedValueException($value, 'string'); // separate multiple types using pipes // throw new UnexpectedValueException($value, 'string|int'); } if (!preg_match('/^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/', $value, $matches)) { // the argument must be a string or an object implementing __toString() $this->context->buildViolation($constraint->message) ->setParameter('{{ string }}', $value) ->addViolation(); } } }
.. versionadded:: 4.4 The feature to allow passing an object as the ``buildViolation()`` argument was introduced in Symfony 4.4.
Inside validate()
, you don't need to return a value. Instead, you add violations
to the validator's context
property and a value will be considered valid
if it causes no violations. The buildViolation()
method takes the error
message as its argument and returns an instance of
:class:`Symfony\\Component\\Validator\\Violation\\ConstraintViolationBuilderInterface`.
The addViolation()
method call finally adds the violation to the context.
You can use custom validators like the ones provided by Symfony itself:
.. configuration-block:: .. code-block:: php-annotations // src/Entity/User.php namespace App\Entity; use App\Validator as AcmeAssert; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert; class User { // ... /** * @Assert\NotBlank * @AcmeAssert\ContainsAlphanumeric */ protected string $name = ''; // ... } .. code-block:: yaml # config/validator/validation.yaml App\Entity\User: properties: name: - NotBlank: ~ - App\Validator\ContainsAlphanumeric: ~ .. code-block:: xml <!-- config/validator/validation.xml --> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <constraint-mapping xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping https://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd"> <class name="App\Entity\User"> <property name="name"> <constraint name="NotBlank"/> <constraint name="App\Validator\ContainsAlphanumeric"/> </property> </class> </constraint-mapping> .. code-block:: php // src/Entity/User.php namespace App\Entity; use App\Validator\ContainsAlphanumeric; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\NotBlank; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata; class User { protected string $name = ''; // ... public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata): void { $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('name', new NotBlank()); $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('name', new ContainsAlphanumeric()); } }
If your constraint contains options, then they should be public properties on the custom Constraint class you created earlier. These options can be configured like options on core Symfony constraints.
If you're using the :ref:`default services.yaml configuration <service-container-services-load-example>`,
then your validator is already registered as a service and :doc:`tagged </service_container/tags>`
with the necessary validator.constraint_validator
. This means you can
:ref:`inject services or configuration <services-constructor-injection>` like any other service.
Besides validating a single property, a constraint can have an entire class as its scope.
For instance, imagine you also have a PaymentReceipt
entity and you
need to make sure the email of the receipt payload matches the user's
email. First, create a constraint and override the getTargets()
method:
// src/Validator/ConfirmedPaymentReceipt.php namespace App\Validator; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraint; /** * @Annotation */ class ConfirmedPaymentReceipt extends Constraint { public string $userDoesNotMatchMessage = 'User\'s e-mail address does not match that of the receipt'; public function getTargets(): string { return self::CLASS_CONSTRAINT; } }
Now, the constraint validator will get an object as the first argument to
validate()
:
// src/Validator/ConfirmedPaymentReceiptValidator.php namespace App\Validator; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraint; use Symfony\Component\Validator\ConstraintValidator; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Exception\UnexpectedValueException; class ConfirmedPaymentReceiptValidator extends ConstraintValidator { /** * @param PaymentReceipt $receipt */ public function validate($receipt, Constraint $constraint): void { if (!$receipt instanceof PaymentReceipt) { throw new UnexpectedValueException($receipt, PaymentReceipt::class); } if (!$constraint instanceof ConfirmedPaymentReceipt) { throw new UnexpectedValueException($constraint, ConfirmedPaymentReceipt::class); } $receiptEmail = $receipt->getPayload()['email'] ?? null; $userEmail = $receipt->getUser()->getEmail(); if ($userEmail !== $receiptEmail) { $this->context ->buildViolation($constraint->userDoesNotMatchMessage) ->atPath('user.email') ->addViolation(); } } }
Tip
The atPath()
method defines the property with which the validation error is
associated. Use any :doc:`valid PropertyAccess syntax </components/property_access>`
to define that property.
A class constraint validator must be applied to the class itself:
.. configuration-block:: .. code-block:: php-annotations // src/Entity/PaymentReceipt.php namespace App\Entity; use App\Validator\ConfirmedPaymentReceipt; /** * @ConfirmedPaymentReceipt */ class PaymentReceipt { // ... } .. code-block:: yaml # config/validator/validation.yaml App\Entity\PaymentReceipt: constraints: - App\Validator\ConfirmedPaymentReceipt: ~ .. code-block:: xml <!-- config/validator/validation.xml --> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <constraint-mapping xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping https://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd"> <class name="App\Entity\PaymentReceipt"> <constraint name="App\Validator\ConfirmedPaymentReceipt"/> </class> </constraint-mapping> .. code-block:: php // src/Entity/PaymentReceipt.php namespace App\Entity; use App\Validator\ConfirmedPaymentReceipt; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata; class PaymentReceipt { // ... public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata): void { $metadata->addConstraint(new ConfirmedPaymentReceipt()); } }
Use the :class:`Symfony\\Component\\Validator\\Test\\ConstraintValidatorTestCase`` class to simplify writing unit tests for your custom constraints:
// tests/Validator/ContainsAlphanumericValidatorTest.php namespace App\Tests\Validator; use App\Validator\ContainsAlphanumeric; use App\Validator\ContainsAlphanumericValidator; use Symfony\Component\Validator\Test\ConstraintValidatorTestCase; class ContainsAlphanumericValidatorTest extends ConstraintValidatorTestCase { protected function createValidator() { return new ContainsAlphanumericValidator(); } public function testNullIsValid() { $this->validator->validate(null, new ContainsAlphanumeric()); $this->assertNoViolation(); } /** * @dataProvider provideInvalidConstraints */ public function testTrueIsInvalid(ContainsAlphanumeric $constraint) { $this->validator->validate('...', $constraint); $this->buildViolation('myMessage') ->setParameter('{{ string }}', '...') ->assertRaised(); } public function provideInvalidConstraints(): iterable { yield [new ContainsAlphanumeric(message: 'myMessage')]; // ... } }