Question

i have a php class method which determines whether if a class property have got any value. if it holds any value then it will validate and iterate $this->error class property. here is the class method i am using.

public function validate() {
    if(!empty($this->name)) {
        if(!preg_match('/^[a-zA-z ]{3,50}$/',$this->name)) {
            $this->error['name'] = 'Name should be valid letters and should be between 3 and 25 characters';
        }
    }
    if(!empty($this->email)) {
        if(!filter_var($this->email,FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
            $this->error['invalidEmail'] = 'Invalid email address';
        }
        if(empty($this->userId) && $this->emailCount($this->email)) {
            $this->error['emailExist'] = 'Email already exist';
        }
    }
    if(empty($this->userId) && !empty($this->password)) {
        if(strlen($this->password) < 5 || strlen($this->password > 40)) {
            $this->error['password'] = 'Password length should be between 5 and 40 characters';
        }
    }
    if(!empty($this->userId) && !empty($this->newPassword)) {
        if(strlen($this->newPassword) < 5 || strlen($this->newPassword > 40)) {
            $this->error['password'] = 'Password length should be between 5 and 40 characters';
        }
    }
    if(!empty($this->pPhone)) {
        if(!preg_match('/^[0-9]{5,10}$/',$this->pPhone)) {
            $this->error['invalidpPhone'] = 'Invalid primary phone number';
        }
    }
    if(!empty($this->sPhone)) {
        if(!preg_match('/^[0-9]{5,10}$/',$this->sPhone)) {
            $this->error['invalidsPhone'] = 'Invalid secondary phone number';
        }
    }
    return (empty($this->error)) ? true : false;    
}

i have used lots of if conditions here which i think is not very good, is there any other way i could determine the above condition and rewrite the code in a more better way?

Answer 1

You could use variable variables and loop through your code. But this means you’ll have to come up with some sort of standardized validation scheme for your code

$validateFields = array('email', 'username', 'userId'); //list of fields to validate
$rules = array(
  'username' => array('type'=> 'regex', 'rule' => '/^[a-zA-z ]{3,50}$/'),
  'email'    => array('type' => 'filter', 'rule' => 'FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL')
);

foreach ($validateFields as $field) {
   if (isset($rules[$field])) {
       switch ($rules[$field]['type']) {
           case 'regex' : 
              if(!preg_match($rules[$field]['type']['rule'],$this->$field)) {
                    $this->error[$field] = ucfirst($field) . ' should be valid letters and should be between 3 and 25 characters';
              }
              break;

           case 'filter' :
              if(!filter_var($this->$field, $rules[$field]['type']['rule'])) {
                  $this->error[$field] = 'Invalid email address';
              }
              break

           //more cases
       }
   }
}
return (empty($this->error)) ? true : false; 

This example only uses one rule per field, but you should be able to easily extend it to use multiple rules per field.

You’ll initially have to setup all the rules, but the validation won’t grow just because you add another property to your class.