How to validate non-required data

[sldhana-zz]

I have a schema like this. The secondary_email should only be validated if it contains anything other than an blank value. But with this schema, the pattern is always being used to validate a blank value and it fails validation.

data = {"testing": "", 'email': 'yoo@y.com', 'secondary_email': ''}
schema = {
    "properties": {
        "email": {
            "required": True,
            'pattern': "^[a-zA-Z0-9'\-_\+]+(?:[\.][a-zA-Z0-9'\-_\+]+)*@([a-zA-Z0-9]([-]?[a-zA-Z0-9])*\.)*[a-zA-Z0-9]([-]?[a-zA-Z0-9]){0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9]{0,1}\.[a-zA-Z]{2,6}(\.[a-zA-Z]{2})?$"
        },
        "secondary_email": {
            'type': ['string', 'null'],
            'blank': True,
            'required': False,
            'pattern': "^[a-zA-Z0-9'\-_\+]+(?:[\.][a-zA-Z0-9'\-_\+]+)*@([a-zA-Z0-9]([-]?[a-zA-Z0-9])*\.)*[a-zA-Z0-9]([-]?[a-zA-Z0-9]){0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9]{0,1}\.[a-zA-Z]{2,6}(\.[a-zA-Z]{2})?$"
        },
        "testing": {
            "required": False,
            "blank": True # fails
        }
    }
}

Next approach was to do this:

data = {"testing": "", 'email': 'yoo@y.com', 'secondary_email': ''}
schema = {
    "properties": {
        "email": {
            "required": True,
            'pattern': "^[a-zA-Z0-9'\-_\+]+(?:[\.][a-zA-Z0-9'\-_\+]+)*@([a-zA-Z0-9]([-]?[a-zA-Z0-9])*\.)*[a-zA-Z0-9]([-]?[a-zA-Z0-9]){0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9]{0,1}\.[a-zA-Z]{2,6}(\.[a-zA-Z]{2})?$"
        },
        "secondary_email": {
            'type': ['string', 'null'],
            'blank': True,
            'required': False,
            'pattern': "^[a-zA-Z0-9'\-_\+]+(?:[\.][a-zA-Z0-9'\-_\+]+)*@([a-zA-Z0-9]([-]?[a-zA-Z0-9])*\.)*[a-zA-Z0-9]([-]?[a-zA-Z0-9]){0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9]{0,1}\.[a-zA-Z]{2,6}(\.[a-zA-Z]{2})?$"
        },
        "testing": {
            "required": False,
            "blank": True # fails
        }
    }
}

I then have a custom email function that checks the format_option and determine whether it contains the word optional or not. If optional, I then only validate if value is not empty. Although this works, this solution doesn't seem very elegant. Am I missing something that I could do much simpler?

[jamesturk]

Hmm, if pattern is present it is validated... I see the case for making blank override this but I'm not sure if that'd break compatibility w/ JSON schema. Is it an option to make your secondary regex accept blank strings as well?

[sldhana-zz]

@jamesturk - seems like then I have to specify the regex differently for each optional field. I am trying to do this with dynamic form generation. Could you explain the compatibility with JSON schema? Is it because each key should be independent and not rely on each other?

[jamesturk]

That's fair. I'll try and figure out which is expected behavior from JSON schema's point of view (it's basically a question of precedence, IIRC this might be vague in the draft spec)

On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 8:02 PM, sldhana notifications@github.com wrote:

@jamesturk https://github.com/jamesturk - seems like then I have to specify the regex differently for each optional field. I am trying to do this with dynamic form generation. Could you explain the compatibility with JSON schema? Is it because each key should be independent and not rely on each other?

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[jamesturk]

closed in light of #114