$ref only supported at the root?

[kevinsmith]

I may be missing something, but it appears that $ref is only recognized if it's at the root of the schema document. I tried following the example given in the documentation, but the $ref isn't even detected.

(When I move the $ref property to the root, it's detected, but it fails to load if ISchemaLoader isn't provided to Validator. Perhaps more an issue with documentation than the software itself.)

[sorinsarca]

@kevinsmith can you provide a code snippet to reproduce this issue? I think it is a typo somewhere or maybe you forgot to register the schema.

[kevinsmith]

It's the example from the documentation:

{
  "$id": "http://example.com/custom-email-validator.json#",
  
  "type": "string",
  "format": "email",
  "pattern": "@example\\.test$"
}

user-validator.json:

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "name": {
      "type": "string",
      "minLength": 2
    },
    "email": {
      "$ref": "http://example.com/custom-email-validator.json#"
    }
  },
  "required": ["name", "email"],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

The validator is constructed like this:

$loader = new File('http://example.com/', ['path/to/schema/files/']);
$schema = $loader->loadSchema('http://example.com/user-validator.json');

$validator = new Validator(null, $loader);

$validator->schemaValidation(json_decode('{"sample":"request_body"}'), $schema);

I've placed a var_dump($ref); die; after this line

json-schema/src/Validator.php

Line 341 in bb4dc63

$ref = $schema->{'$ref'};

and it never gets called.

[sorinsarca]

@kevinsmith, you must provide the decoded json data, not the json string. There is a warning in the documentation about this https://docs.opis.io/json-schema/1.x/php-validator.html#validation-methods

$data = '{"sample":"request_body"}'; // raw json data as string
$data = json_decode($data); // decode the json data
$validator->schemaValidation($data, $schema); // now we can validate

[kevinsmith]

Sorry, that was an error I made in trying to oversimplify the example. In my actual code I'm taking the request body (a JSON string) and running it through json_decode(). I updated the example above to reflect that.

[sorinsarca]

Ok, I've just tried to reproduce your issue and I couldn't.
If the code don't throw any exception can you post the validation result (or the exception otherwise)?

Please use the specified input.

$data = '{"name": "My name", "email": "[email protected]"}';
$data = json_decode($data);
$result = $validator->schemaValidation($data, $schema);
var_dump($result);

[kevinsmith]

Well, I think this might be entirely a misunderstanding on my part! My apologies! With JSON that looks like

{"name": "My name"}

I get an error that the required attribute "email" is missing, and I can see that Validator::validateRef() never gets called at all. With the JSON

{"name": "My name", "email": "thisisnotavalidemail"}

I get a pattern validation error, which would be expected, and I can see that Validator::validateRef() does get called.

So I guess I was expecting the entire document would be resolved before any validation would be run. It appears that it's actually lazy-loading references to avoid making any unnecessary calls. Do I have that right?

This raises another question though. I've noticed that if I try to validate the JSON

{}

or

{"email": "thisisnotavalidemail"}

There's only 1 error, and it's that "name" is missing. "email" is never validated, either to be sure it's there or to check that it matches the pattern. Is the validator meant to only return the first error? That's not what I would've expected given that it includes methods like https://docs.opis.io/json-schema/1.x/php-validation-result.html#totalerrors

[sorinsarca]

So I guess I was expecting the entire document would be resolved before any validation would be run. It appears that it's actually lazy-loading references to avoid making any unnecessary calls. Do I have that right?

Yes, the documents are loaded only when needed.

Is the validator meant to only return the first error?

Well, there is a third param to schemaValidation(), dataValidation() and uriValidation() called $max_errors where you can set the max errors. Currently this means that the validation will continue until max errors are reached. I'm guessing that you are trying to validate a form and show all error messages and that's why you need multiple errors. However, it is possible that later you might encounter another issues because the behaviour of max errors is a little bit inconsistent. If this is the case please check #16 and related issues.

The good news is that in version 2.0 we will have consistent support for max errors and error messages. Currently I'm working on the documentation for version 2.0 and I hope that this month it will be released.

[kevinsmith]

Sounds good, thanks!