ValidationToolkit
is designed to be a lightweight framework specialised in data validation, such as email format, input length or passwords matching.
At the core of this project are the following principles:
- Separation of concerns
- Availability on all platforms
- Open to extensibility
Think of ValidationToolkit
as to an adjustable wrench more than to a Swiss knife.
With this idea in mind, the toolkit is composed from a small set of protocols, structs and classes than can be easily composed to fit your project needs.
Since validation can take place at many levels, ValidationToolkit
is designed to support iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS and native Swift projects, such as server apps.
Every project is unique in it's challenges and it's great when we can focus on solving them instead of spending our time on boilerplate tasks.
ValidationToolkit
is compact and offers you the foundation you need to build data validation around your project needs. In addition, it includes a set of common validation predicates that most of the projects can benefit of: email validation, required fields, password matching, url validation and many more to come.
- iOS 8.0+ / macOS 10.10+ / tvOS 9.0+ / watchOS 2.0+
- Xcode 8.1+
- Swift 3.0+
You can use Carthage to install ValidationToolkit
by adding it to your Cartfile
:
github "nsagora/validation-toolkit"
Run carthage update
to build the framework and drag the built ValidationToolkit.framework
into your Xcode project.
Setting up Carthage
Carthage is a decentralised dependency manager that builds your dependencies and provides you with binary frameworks.
You can install Carthage with Homebrew using the following command:
$ brew update
$ brew install carthage
You can use CocoaPods to install ValidationToolkit
by adding it to your Podfile
:
source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'
platform :ios, '8.0'
use_frameworks!
target 'YOUR_TARGET_NAME' do
pod 'ValidationToolkit'
end
Then, run the following command:
$ pod install
Note that this requires CocoaPods version 1.0.0, and your iOS deployment target to be at least 8.0.
Setting up CocoaPods
CocoaPods is a dependency manager for Cocoa projects. You can install it with the following command:
$ gem install cocoapods
You can use the Swift Package Manager to install ValidationToolkit
by adding it to your Package.swift
file:
import PackageDescription
let package = Package(
name: "YOUR_PROJECT_NAME",
targets: [],
dependencies: [
.Package(url: "https://github.com/nsagora/validation-toolkit", majorVersion: 1),
]
)
Note that the Swift Package Manager is still in early design and development, for more information checkout its GitHub Page.
To use this library in your project manually you may:
- for Projects, just drag the
Sources
folder into the project tree - for Workspaces, include the whole
ValidationToolkit.xcodeproj
For a comprehensive list of examples try the ValidationToolikit.playground
:
- Download the repository locally on your machine
- Open
ValidationToolkit.workspace
- Build
ValidationToolkit iOS
target - Select the
ValidationToolkit
playgrounds from the Project navigator.
The Predicate
represents the core protocol
and has the role to evaluate
if an input matches on a given validation condition.
At ValidationToolkit
's core we have the following two predicates, which allow developers to compose predicates specific to the project needs.
RegexPredicate
let predicate = RegexPredicate(expression: "^[a-z]$")
predicate.evaluate(with: "a") // returns true
predicate.evaluate(with: "5") // returns false
predicate.evaluate(with: "ab") // returns false
BlockPredicate
let pred = BlockPredicate<String> { $0.characters.count > 2 }
predicate.evaluate(with: "a") // returns false
predicate.evaluate(with: "abc") // returns true
In addition, the toolkit offers a set of common validation predicates that your project can benefit of:
EmailPredicate
let predicate = EmailPredicate()
predicate.evaluate(with: "hello@") // returns false
predicate.evaluate(with: "[email protected]") // returns true
predicate.evaluate(with: "hé[email protected]") // returns true
URLPredicate
let predicate = URLPredicate()
predicate.evaluate(with: "http://www.url.com") // returns true
predicate.evaluate(with: "http:\\www.url.com") // returns false
PairMatchingPredicate
let predicate = PairMatchingPredicate()
predicate.evaluate(with: ("swift", "swift")) // returns true
predicate.evaluate(with: ("swift", "obj-c")) // returns false
On top of that, developers can build more advanced or complex predicates by extending the Predicate
protocol, and/ or by composing or decorating the existing predicates:
Custom Predicate
public class MinLenghtPredicate: Predicate {
public typealias InputType = String
private let minLenght:Int
public init(minLenght:Int) {
self.minLenght = minLenght
}
public func evaluate(with input: String) -> Bool {
return input.characters.count >= minLenght
}
}
let predicate = MinLenghtPredicate(minLenght: 5)
predicate.evaluate(with: "alph") // returns false
predicate.evaluate(with: "alpha") // returns true
predicate.evaluate(with: "alphabet") // returns true
A PredicateConstraint
represents a data type that links a Predicate
to an Error
, in order to provide useful feedback for the end users.
PredicateConstraint
let predicate = BlockPredicate<String> { $0 == "Mr. Goodbytes" }
let constraint = PredicateConstraint(predicate: predicate, error: MyError.magicWord)
let result = constraint.evaluate(with: "please")
switch result {
case .valid:
print("access granted...")
case .invalid(let summary):
print("Ah Ah Ah! You didn't say the magic word!")
} // prints "Ah Ah Ah! You didn't say the magic word!"
enum MyError:Error {
case magicWord
}
A ConstraintSet
represents a collection of constraints that allows the evaluation to be made on:
- any of the constraints
- all constraints
To provide context, a ConstraintSet
allows us to constraint a piece of data as being required and also as being a valid email.
ConstraintSet
An example is that of the registration form, whereby users are prompted to enter a strong password. This process typically entails some form of validation, but the logic itself is often unstructured and spread out through a view controller.ValidationToolkit
seeks instead to consolidate, standardise, and make explicit the logic that is being used to validate user input. To this end, the below example demonstrates construction of a full ConstraintSet
object that can be used to enforce requirements on the user's password data:
let lowerCase = RegexPredicate(expression: "^(?=.*[a-z]).*$")
let upperCase = RegexPredicate(expression: "^(?=.*[A-Z]).*$")
let digits = RegexPredicate(expression: "^(?=.*[0-9]).*$")
let specialChars = RegexPredicate(expression: "^(?=.*[!@#\\$%\\^&\\*]).*$")
let minLenght = RegexPredicate(expression: "^.{8,}$")
var passwordConstraints = ConstraintSet<String>()
passwordConstraints.add(predicate: lowerCasePredicate, error: Form.Password.missingLowercase)
passwordConstraints.add(predicate: upperCasePredicate, error: Form.Password.missingUpercase)
passwordConstraints.add(predicate: digitsPredicate, error: Form.Password.missingDigits)
passwordConstraints.add(predicate: specialChars, error: Form.Password.missingSpecialChars)
passwordConstraints.add(predicate: minLenght, error: Form.Password.minLenght(8))
let password = "3nGuard!"
let result = passwordConstraints.evaluateAll(input: password)
switch result {
case .valid:
print("Wow, that's a 💪 password!")
case .invalid(let summary):
print(summary.errors.map({$0.localizedDescription}))
} // prints "Wow, that's a 💪 password!"
From above, we see that once we've constructed the passwordConstraints
, we're simply calling evaluateAll(input:)
to get a Summary
of our evaluation result. This summary can then be handled as we please.
We would love you for the contribution to ValidationToolkit, check the LICENSE
file for more info.
This project is developed and maintained by the members of iOS NSAgora, the community of iOS Developers of Iași, Romania.
Distributed under the MIT license. See LICENSE
for more information.
[https://github.com/nsagora/validation-toolkit]
We got inspired from other open source projects and they worth to be mentioned below for reference: