A technique for handling form input validation for running an arbitrary number of tests against the submitted data.
Probably doesn’t work with multiple select options
A database table to store all the possible input fields
CREATE TABLE form_items (
id INT PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
name CHAR(64) NOT NULL,
type CHAR(6) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'string',
updated_by CHAR(32),
updated_at DATETIME
);
There might be additional columns to identify the page or section that an input value is found on.
Then we have a table to identify the validation functions available
CREATE TABLE column_validations (
id INT PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
name CHAR(32) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
updated_by CHAR(32),
updated_at DATETIME
);
There might be other columns to identify the severity and whether to continue or not. in the event of failure
Then we have a many-to-many map of validators to columns
CREATE TABLE column_validation_form_items(
column_validation_id INT REFERENCES column_validations,
form_item_id INT REFERENCES form_items
);
A PeeWee model might look like
class BaseModel(Model):
with app.app_context():
class Meta:
database = SqliteDatabase(app.config['DATABASE'])
class form_items(BaseModel):
id = IntegerField(primary_key=True)
name = CharField(unique=False)
type = CharField(default='string')
updated_by = CharField()
updated_at = DateTimeField(default=datetime.datetime.now())
class column_validations(BaseModel):
id = IntegerField(primary_key=True)
name = CharField(unique=True)
updated_by = CharField()
updated_at = DateTimeField(default=datetime.datetime.now())
class column_validation_config_columns(BaseModel):
column_validation = ForeignKeyField(column_validations)
form_item = ForeignKeyField(form_items)
class Meta:
primary_key = CompositeKey('column_validation', 'form_item')
Sample function to run through the form value validations:
# Take the name of the form field and the submitted value
def cleanInput(name, value):
# Array to map the validator names from the database to the function
# Not sure if it's possible in Python to do the equivalent of a callback
# without this type of referencing
validators = {
"valid_ip_address": valid_ip_address,
"valid_ip_range":valid_ip_range,
"valid_url": valid_url,
"true_or_false": true_or_false,
"yes_or_no": yes_or_no,
"is_integer": is_integer}
rs = (column_validations.select(column_validations.name)
.join(column_validation_form_items, JOIN.INNER)
.join(form_items, JOIN.INNER)
.where(form_items.name == name))
# Provide a failsafe for when no validator is found
# Try each of the validators when the input value in non-blank
if len(value) > 0:
status = True
msg = ""
for proc in rs:
func = proc.name
if func in validators:
(status, msg) = validators[func](value)
if not status:
return (False, "Error: %s validation failure: %s" % (name, msg))
else: # Empty value, just return True
return(True, value)
return (True, msg)
Some sample validation functions. Note that these return a tuple to indicate the status along with an error message. If the status is false, dsiplay the error message and redisplay the form; otherwise continue.
"""
Simple function to validate an IPv4 address
This needs to import socket but note how it avoids regex patterns
Params:
addr: string containing IP address
Returns:
(True|False, addr|errmsg)
"""
def valid_ip_address(addr):
try:
socket.inet_pton(socket.AF_INET, addr)
return (True, addr)
except socket.error:
return (False, ("Invalid IP address, %s." % addr))
"""
Simple function to validate an IPv4 address range in CIDR format
Pattern match taken from http://blog.markhatton.co.uk/2011/03/15/regular-expressions-for-ip-addresses-cidr-ranges-and-hostnames/
Params:
ip_range: string containing IP address range
Returns:
(True|False, ip_range|errmsg)
"""
def valid_ip_range(ip_range):
patt = "^(([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\.){3}([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])(\/([0-9]|[1-2][0-9]|3[0-2]))$"
if re.search(patt, ip_range):
return (True, ip_range)
return(False, ("Invalid IPv4 range: %s" % ip_range))
"""
Function to validate a submitted website address
Params:
addr: String containing a URL
Returns:
(True|False, url|errmsg)
"""
def valid_url(url):
if len(url) > 2083:
return(False, ("Invalid url, %s: too long." % url))
patt = "(http|https):\/\/(\w+:{0,1}\w*@)?(\S+)(:[0-9]+)?(\/|\/([\w#!:.?+=&%@!\-\/]))?"
if re.search(patt, url, re.IGNORECASE):
return (True, url)
return (False, ("Invalid url, %s." % url))
def true_or_false(value):
for patt in ('true', 'false', '1', '0'):
if re.search(patt, value, re.IGNORECASE):
return (True, value)
return(False, ("%s must be either true or false, 0 or 1" % value))
def yes_or_no(value):
for patt in ('yes', 'no', '1', '0'):
if re.search(patt, value, re.IGNORECASE):
return (True, value)
return(False, ("%s must be either true or false, 0 or 1" % value))
"""
Simple function to return whether a value is an Integer
Params:
value: String representation of an integer
Returns:
(True|False, value|errmsg)
"""
def is_integer(value):
if isinstance(int(value), int):
return (True, value)
return (False, ("%s is not an integer" % value))
References
