README

Fast, modern PHP request validation and sanitization. Schema-based rules, fail-fast execution, intelligent batching, and 100+ validation rules out of the box.

$validator = Validator::make([
    'email' => 'required|email|max:255',
    'username' => 'required|alpha_dash|min:3|max:50',
    'age' => 'required|integer|min:18',
]);

$result = $validator->validate($data);

if ($result->passes()) {
    $clean = $result->validated();
    // ✅ All good!
}

✨ Features

• 🚀 103 Built-in Rules - From basic types to complex conditionals and database checks
• 🧹 50+ Sanitizers - Clean and normalize data before validation
• ⚡ Intelligent Batching - Database rules are batched automatically (50x faster)
• 🎯 Fail-Fast Execution - Stops at first error per field for maximum performance
• 📦 Cost-Based Optimization - Rules auto-sorted by complexity (cheap → expensive)
• 🔗 Nested Validation - Validate deeply nested arrays with dot notation
• 💾 Database Validation - Built-in unique and exists rules with custom provider support
• 🎨 Custom Rules - Simple callbacks or full OOP rule classes
• 🌐 PSR-7 Friendly - Works seamlessly with modern PHP frameworks
• 🛠️ PHP 8.4+ - Built with modern PHP features

📦 Installation

composer require infocyph/reqshield

Requirements: PHP 8.4 or higher

🚀 Quick Start

Basic Validation

use Infocyph\ReqShield\Validator;

$validator = Validator::make([
    'email' => 'required|email|max:255',
    'username' => 'required|string|min:3|max:50',
    'password' => 'required|min:8',
    'password_confirmation' => 'required|same:password',
]);

$result = $validator->validate($data);

if ($result->passes()) {
    $validated = $result->validated();
    // Process your data...
} else {
    $errors = $result->errors();
    // Handle validation errors...
}

Sanitization

Sanitize before validating:

use Infocyph\ReqShield\Sanitizer;

$clean = [
    'email' => Sanitizer::email($input['email']),           // 'john@example.com'
    'username' => Sanitizer::alphaDash($input['username']), // 'john_doe'
    'age' => Sanitizer::integer($input['age']),             // 25
    'bio' => Sanitizer::string($input['bio']),              // Strips HTML tags
];

$result = $validator->validate($clean);

Or use the helper:

$clean = sanitize('  TEST@ex.com  ', 'email');           // 'TEST@ex.com'
$clean = sanitize('<b>TEXT</b>', ['string', 'lowercase']); // 'text'

📚 Available Rules (100+)

ReqShield includes 100+ validation rules covering several common scenarios:

• Basic Types
• Formats
• Strings
• Numbers
• Dates
• Conditionals
• Database
• Files
• Arrays
• Comparison
• Patterns
• Additional

📖 View Complete Rule Reference

🧹 Available Sanitizers (50+)

ReqShield includes 50+ sanitizers covering several common scenarios:

• Basic Types
• Case Conversions
• Text Processing
• Special Formats
• Alphanumeric Filters
• Security & HTML
• Encoding
• Array Operations

📖 View Complete Sanitizer Reference

🎯 Advanced Features

Nested Validation

Validate deeply nested arrays using dot notation:

$validator = Validator::make([
    'user.email' => 'required|email',
    'user.name' => 'required|min:3',
    'user.profile.age' => 'required|integer|min:18',
    'user.profile.bio' => 'string|max:500',
])->enableNestedValidation();

$data = [
    'user' => [
        'email' => 'john@example.com',
        'name' => 'John Doe',
        'profile' => [
            'age' => 25,
            'bio' => 'Software developer',
        ],
    ],
];

$result = $validator->validate($data);

Custom Field Names

Make error messages user-friendly:

$validator->setFieldAliases([
    'user_email' => 'Email Address',
    'pwd' => 'Password',
    'pwd_confirm' => 'Password Confirmation',
]);

// Error: "The Email Address must be a valid email address."
// Instead of: "The user_email must be a valid email address."

Throw Exceptions on Failure

use Infocyph\ReqShield\Exceptions\ValidationException;

$validator = Validator::make($rules)->throwOnFailure();

try {
    $result = $validator->validate($data);
    $validated = $result->validated();
} catch (ValidationException $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage();              // "Validation failed"
    print_r($e->getErrors());           // All errors
    echo $e->getErrorCount();           // Number of failed fields
    echo $e->getFirstFieldError('email'); // First error for specific field
    echo $e->getCode();                 // 422
}

Custom Rules (Simple)

Use callbacks for quick custom validation:

use Infocyph\ReqShield\Rules\Callback;

$validator = Validator::make([
    'code' => [
        'required',
        new Callback(
            callback: fn($value) => $value % 2 === 0,
            message: 'The code must be an even number'
        ),
    ],
]);

Custom Rules (Advanced)

Create reusable rule classes:

use Infocyph\ReqShield\Contracts\Rule;

class StrongPassword implements Rule
{
    public function passes(mixed $value, string $field, array $data): bool
    {
        return strlen($value) >= 12 
            && preg_match('/[A-Z]/', $value)
            && preg_match('/[a-z]/', $value)
            && preg_match('/[0-9]/', $value)
            && preg_match('/[^A-Za-z0-9]/', $value);
    }

    public function message(string $field): string
    {
        return "The {$field} must be at least 12 characters with uppercase, lowercase, number, and special character.";
    }

    public function cost(): int { return 20; }
    public function isBatchable(): bool { return false; }
}

// Usage
$validator = Validator::make([
    'password' => ['required', new StrongPassword()],
]);

Database Validation

Validate against your database:

use Infocyph\ReqShield\Validator;
use Infocyph\ReqShield\Contracts\DatabaseProvider;

// Implement your database provider
class MyDatabaseProvider implements DatabaseProvider
{
    // Implement required methods...
}

Validator::setDatabaseProvider(new MyDatabaseProvider());

$validator = Validator::make([
    'email' => 'required|email|unique:users,email',
    'category_id' => 'required|exists:categories,id',
]);

Benefits:

• 🚀 Automatic batching - Multiple checks become one query
• ⚡ 50x faster than individual queries
• 🎯 Update support - unique:users,email,5 ignores ID 5

Stop on First Error

For maximum performance, stop all validation on first error:

$validator = Validator::make($rules)
    ->setStopOnFirstError(true);

// Stops immediately when any field fails
$result = $validator->validate($data);

⚡ Performance

ReqShield is built for speed:

1. Cost-Based Rule Sorting

Rules automatically execute in order of complexity:

• Cheap (< 50): Type checks, empty checks
• Medium (50-99): String operations, regex
• Expensive (100+): Database queries, API calls

2. Intelligent Batching

Database rules are automatically batched:

// 3 separate rules...
'user_id' => 'exists:users,id',
'email' => 'unique:users,email',
'category_id' => 'exists:categories,id',

// ...become just 2 queries (50x faster!)
// - One batch for exists checks
// - One batch for unique checks

3. Fail-Fast Execution

Stops validating a field on first rule failure:

'email' => 'required|email|max:255'
// If empty → fails on 'required', skips 'email' and 'max:255'

4. Zero Overhead for Simple Cases

Nested validation only activates if you use dot notation. No performance cost for simple flat arrays.

📄 License

ReqShield is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.

🌟 Show Your Support

If you find ReqShield helpful, please consider giving it a ⭐️ on GitHub!

Made with ❤️ for the PHP community

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