Nested Validations With Folktale

Question

I've been using Folktale's Validation on a new project and I've found it really useful, but I have hit a wall with the need for sequential validations. I have a config object and I need to perform the following validations:

• is is an Object?
• are the object's keys valid (do they appear on a whitelist)?
• are the values of the keys valid?

Each validation depends on the previous validation - if the item isn't an object, validating its keys is pointless (and will error), if the object has no keys, validating their values are pointless. Effectively I want to short-circuit validation if the validation fails.

My initial thought was to use Result instead of Validatio, but mixing the two types feels confusing, and I already havevalidateIsObject` defined and used elsewhere.

My current (working but ugly) solution is here:

import { validation } from 'folktale';
import { validateIsObject } from 'folktale-validations';
import validateConfigKeys from './validateConfigKeys';
import validateConfigValues from './validateConfigValues';

const { Success, Failure } = validation;

export default config => {
  const wasObject = validateIsObject(config);
  let errorMessages;
  if (Success.hasInstance(wasObject)) {
    const hadValidKeys = validateConfigKeys(config);
    if (Success.hasInstance(hadValidKeys)) {
      const hasValidValues = validateConfigValues(config);
      if (Success.hasInstance(hasValidValues)) {
        return Success(config);
      }
      errorMessages = hasValidValues.value;
    } else {
      errorMessages = hadValidKeys.value;
    }
  } else {
    errorMessages = wasObject.value;
  }
  return Failure(errorMessages);
};

I initially took the approach of using nested matchWiths, but this was even harder to read.

How can I improve on this solution?

Answer 1

You can write a helper that applies validation rules until a Failure is returned. A quick example:

const validateUntilFailure = (rules) => (x) => rules.reduce(
  (result, rule) => Success.hasInstance(result) 
    ? result.concat(rule(x)) 
    : result,
  Success()
);

We use concat to combine two results. We use Success.hasInstance to check whether we need to apply the next rule. Your module will now be one line long:

export default config => validateUntilFailure([ 
  validateIsObject, validateConfigKeys, validateConfigValues
]);

Note that this implementation doesn't return early once it sees a Failure. A recursive implementation might be the more functional approach, but won't appeal to everyone:

const validateUntilFailure = ([rule, ...rules], x, result = Success()) => 
  Failure.hasInstance(result) || !rule
    ? result
    : validateUntilFailure(rules, x, result.concat(rule(x)))

Check out the example below for running code. There's a section commented out that shows how to run all rules, even if there are Failures.

const { Success, Failure } = folktale.validation;

const validateIsObject = (x) =>
  x !== null && x.constructor === Object
   ? Success(x)
   : Failure(['Input is not an object']);

const validateHasRightKeys = (x) =>
  ["a", "b"].every(k => k in x) 
   ?  Success(x)
  :  Failure(['Item does not have a & b.']);

const validateHasRightValues = (x) =>
  x.a < x.b
   ? Success(x)
  : Failure(['b is larger or equal to a']);


// This doesn't work because it calls all validations on
// every item
/*
const validateItem = (x) =>
  Success().concat(validateIsObject(x))
           .concat(validateHasRightKeys(x))
           .concat(validateHasRightValues(x))
           .map(_ => x);
*/

// General validate until failure function:
const validateUntilFailure = (rules) => (x) => rules.reduce(
  (result, rule) => Success.hasInstance(result) 
    ? result.concat(rule(x)) 
    : result,
  Success()
);

// Let's try it out!
const testCases = [
  null,
  { a: 1 },
  { b: 2 },
  { a: 1, b: 2 },
  { a: 2, b: 1 }
];

const fullValidation = validateUntilFailure([
 validateIsObject, 
  validateHasRightKeys,
  validateHasRightValues
]);



console.log(
  testCases
    .map(x => [x, fullValidation(x)])
    .map(stringifyResult)
    .join("\n")
);

function stringifyResult([input, output]) {
  return `input: ${JSON.stringify(input)}, ${Success.hasInstance(output) ? "success:" : "error:"} ${JSON.stringify(output.value)}`;
}

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