WARNING: This project is no longer maintained. Use express-json-validator-middleware instead!
Best of luck my friends!
express.js middleware for JSON schema validation.
- It makes setting up request validation simple and gets out of your way.
- It makes no assumptions about how you want to handle invalid data. Response status codes, message formatting, content type, and logging strategies are not one size fits all.
- It leverages the jsonschema library to conduct JSON schema validation.
jsonschema
is popular (10K+ downloads / week) and adheres to the latest IETF published v4 draft of JSON schema.
- Simple - JSON schemas are a simple and expressive way to describe a data structure that your API expects.
- Standard - JSON schemas are not specific to javascript. They are used in many server side languages. The standard specification lives here json-schema.org.
- Fail-Fast - Validating a payload before handing it to your application code will catch errors early that would otherwise lead to more confusing errors later.
- Separate Validation - Manually inspecting a payload for errors can get lengthy and clutter up your application code.
- Error Messaging - Coming up with error messaging for every validation error becomes tedious and inconsistent.
- Documentation - Creating a JSON schema helps document the API requirements.
$ npm install express-jsonschema
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var validate = require('express-jsonschema').validate;
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
// Create a json scehma
var StreetSchema = {
type: 'object',
properties: {
number: {
type: 'number',
required: true
},
name: {
type: 'string',
required: true
},
type: {
type: 'string',
required: true
enum: ['Street', 'Avenue', 'Boulevard']
}
}
}
// This route validates req.body against the StreetSchema
app.post('/street/', validate({body: StreetSchema}), function(req, res) {
// At this point req.body has been validated and you can
// begin to execute your application code
});
/*
Setup a general error handler for JsonSchemaValidation errors.
As mentioned before, how one handles an invalid request depends on their application.
You can easily create some express error middleware
(http://expressjs.com/guide/error-handling.html) to customize how your
application behaves. When the express-jsonschema.validate middleware finds invalid data it
passes an instance of JsonSchemaValidation to the next middleware.
Below is an example of a general JsonSchemaValidation error handler for
an application.
*/
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
var responseData;
if (err.name === 'JsonSchemaValidation') {
// Log the error however you please
console.log(err.message);
// logs "express-jsonschema: Invalid data found"
// Set a bad request http response status or whatever you want
res.status(400);
// Format the response body however you want
responseData = {
statusText: 'Bad Request',
jsonSchemaValidation: true,
validations: err.validations // All of your validation information
};
// Take into account the content type if your app serves various content types
if (req.xhr || req.get('Content-Type') === 'application/json') {
res.json(responseData);
} else {
// If this is an html request then you should probably have
// some type of Bad Request html template to respond with
res.render('badrequestTemplate', responseData);
}
} else {
// pass error to next error middleware handler
next(err);
}
});
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.listen(8080, function(){
console.log('app is running')
});
$ curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{ "number": "12", "type": "Drive"}' http://localhost:8080/street/
{
"statusText":"Bad Request",
"jsonSchemaValidation":true,
"validations":{
"body":[{
"value":"12",
"property":"request.body.number",
"messages":["is not of a type(s)number"]
}, {
"property":"request.body.name",
"messages":["is required"]
}, {
"value":"Drive",
"property":"request.body.type",
"messages":["is not one of enum values: Street,Avenue,Boulevard"]
}]
}
}
Sometimes your route may depend on the body
and query
both having a specific format. In this
example I use body
and query
but you can choose to validate any request
properties you'd like.
var TokenSchema = {
type: 'object',
properties: {
token: {
type: 'string',
format: 'alphanumeric',
minLength: 10,
maxLength: 10,
required: true
}
}
}
app.post('/street/', validate({body: StreetSchema, query: TokenSchema}), function(req, res) {
// application code
});
A valid request would now also require a url like /street/?token=F42G5N5BGC
.
While JSON schema comes with a lot of validation properties out of the box, you may want to add your own
custom properties. addSchemaProperties
allows you to extend the validation properties that can be used in your
schemas. It should be called once at the beginning of your application so that your schemas will
have the custom properties available.
var addSchemaProperties = require('express-jsonschema').addSchemaProperties;
addSchemaProperties({
contains: function(value, schema){
...
},
isDoubleQuoted: function(value, schema){
...
}
});
See jsonschema's how to create custom properties.
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var validate = require('express-jsonschema').validate;
// Address, to be embedded on Person
var AddressSchema = {
"id": "/SimpleAddress",
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"street": {"type": "string"},
"zip": {"type": "string"},
"city": {"type": "string"},
"state": {"type": "string"},
"country": {"type": "string"}
}
};
// Person
var PersonSchema = {
"id": "/SimplePerson",
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": {"type": "string"},
"address": {"$ref": "/SimpleAddress"}
}
};
app.post('/person/', validate({body: PersonSchema}, [AddressSchema]), function(req, res) {
// application code
});
A valid post body:
{
"name": "Barack Obama",
"address": {
"street": "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest",
"zip": "20500",
"city": "Washington",
"state": "DC",
"country": "USA"
}
}
- scpacetelescope's understanding json schema
- jsonschema
- json-schema.org
- json schema generator
- json schema google group
You can declare that something is required in your schema in two ways.
{
type: 'object',
properties: {
foo: {
type: 'string',
required: true
}
}
}
// OR
{
type: 'object',
properties: {
foo: {
type: 'string'
},
required: ['foo']
}
}
The first method works as expected with jsonschema. The second way has a few gotchas. I recommend using the first.
Tests are written using mocha, should, and supertest.
npm test
express-jsonschema is licensed under MIT license.
Copyright (C) 2015 Adrian Adkison <[email protected]>
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this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
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of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do
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