Using array validation on something that isn't an array causes a PHP warning

[thinkjson]

If you do something like this:

<?php

require './vendor/autoload.php';
use Valitron\Validator;
$v = new Validator(['arrayTest' => '300']);
$v->rule('integer', ['arrayTest.*']);
var_dump($v->validate());

Then you get the following PHP warning:

PHP Warning:  Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in vendor/vlucas/valitron/src/Valitron/Validator.php on line 831
PHP Stack trace:
PHP   1. {main}() validation_test.php:0
PHP   2. Valitron\Validator->validate() validation_test.php:7
PHP   3. Valitron\Validator->getPart() vendor/vlucas/valitron/src/Valitron/Validator.php:868
PHP   4. Valitron\Validator->getPart() vendor/vlucas/valitron/src/Valitron/Validator.php:855

[willemwollebrants]

Indeed.

There are a few possible fixes I think:

• make sure the data is an array, if it's not don't run the validation (unless the rule is 'required'). The same thing happens when a key deeper in an array is not set, but it can lead to some unexpected consequences.
• cast the data to an array before running the rule. I don't like this because this way the data actually being tested is not the same as the data provided by the user.
• throw an exception. If this mostly happens because of I programming error, this is probably the best thing to do. The programmer can avoid the exception by adding the 'array' rule before anything else (they probably want/expect to get an array anyway I guess).

I'm going to do a bit of thinking on this

[thinkjson]

I mean, ideally it would just fail validation and everything would be happy.

[willemwollebrants]

But why should it fail validation? What error would you expect to receive in this case?

The "valitron way" would probably be not to run the validation for arrayTest.* at all I guess. We're telling the validator "here are some rules for all the elements of an array called arrayTest", but when there is no such array it's perhaps the same as when there are rules for a field that does not exist in the data. Unless such a non-existing field has a 'required' rule, it will not be validated.

This would allow something like this:

$v = new Validator(array('foo'=>'bar'));
//must be an array
$v->rule('array', 'foo'); //this will return an error 
//all elements of the array must be integer
$v->rule('integer', 'foo.*'); //this won't run

[thinkjson]

I like that, ignore it if required it false, and fail validation if required is true. Is that what you're recommending?

[willemwollebrants]

It's not a recommendation, it's what the could should do after the bugfix. For now it's probably easiest if you cast 'arrayTest' to an array before adding it to the validator :(