Re: [Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms
Ok, this is what I do, so to spark some ideas. I can't disclose many
details because of legal issues but generally speaking
XXXLIB is a special module (can't disclose it's name) where all the
XML stuff is done. It uses LibXML as backend (gnome libxml2 via XS).
xxxapp is the app name
xxx_xsd is the XSD file
1) Figure out if the request is HTML or XML. Note XHTML is considered as HTML.
sub xxxmethod : Local {
my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
# figure out request type (html | xml)
$c-forward('get_req_type');
# xml lib object
my $dx = xxxapp::Controller::Util::XXXLIB-new(
encoding = $c-stash-{encoding},
schema = $c-config-{root}.$c-config-{xxx_xsd},
);
2) Process the request data. If it's XML is goes directly. If it's
HTML is goes through an HTML param to XML conversion. Perhaps by using
XFORMS and making XHTML mandatory I could have simplified the code
even more.
# process request data
my $req_data = undef;
# these couple of methods validate xml using the xsd
# xml request is processed directly by the xml parser
if($c-stash-{xmlreq}) {
$req_data = $dx-process_omreq_xml($c-req-body,'xxxmethod');
}
# html request is converted into equivalent xml
else{
# transforms params into a simple xml
$req_data = $dx-process_omreq_html($c-req-params,'xxxmethod');
}
# data did not pass check
unless($req_data){
$c-stash-{error} = $dx-{error};
# code injection check
unless($dx-{inject}){
$c-stash-{form_action} = $c-request-base.'xxxcont/xxxmethod';
$c-detach('exception/omx/0');
}
else{
$c-stash-{form_action} = '';
$c-detach('exception/sys/1');
}
}
3) From here on $req_data is a normalized hash... and that's it!
[snip]
} # end of controller method
sub get_req_type : Private {
my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
my $encoding = $c-req-content_encoding;
# assume UTF-8 if not specified (application/x-www-form-urlencoded)
$c-stash-{encoding} = $encoding ? $encoding : 'UTF-8';
$c-stash-{xmlreq} = undef;
my $ct = $c-req-content_type;
# XML Request
if($ct =~ m/text\/xml/i){
my $dx = cqridmp::Controller::Util::XXXLIB-new(encoding =
$c-stash-{encoding});
my $dom = $dx-slurp_file($c-req-body);
my $root = $dom-documentElement;
#XHTML is HTML
unless($root-nodeName =~ /.*html.*/i){
$c-stash-{xmlreq} = 1;
}
}
}
On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Chrishutchinson.ch...@gmail.com wrote:
My comment was perhaps more oriented to using a common declarative
validation idiom such as an xml schema because with this particular
project, I found myself maintaining FormBuilder YAML files and XSDs.
Then I decided to convert HTML to XML and use the common XSD for both.
Since most decent XML parsers already perform the validation, and they
are usually quite fast, I thought that perhaps something similar to
the FormBuilder plug-in could be built that used an XML approach.
I like the idea of a single 'base format' which can be used to drive
the validation and the form layout too.
Is your scheme a format which, when rendered as html, defines the form
and, when parsed appropriately, provides the form validation too?
As in:
form
input type=text id=abc format=integer /br /
input type=submit /
/form
- Chris
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Re: [Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms
- Original Message From: Chris hutchinson.ch...@gmail.com To: The elegant MVC web framework catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 8:36:22 PM Subject: Re: [Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms My comment was perhaps more oriented to using a common declarative validation idiom such as an xml schema because with this particular project, I found myself maintaining FormBuilder YAML files and XSDs. Then I decided to convert HTML to XML and use the common XSD for both. Since most decent XML parsers already perform the validation, and they are usually quite fast, I thought that perhaps something similar to the FormBuilder plug-in could be built that used an XML approach. I like the idea of a single 'base format' which can be used to drive the validation and the form layout too. I think the mozilla people did something with XUL... maybe we can leverage that stuff? I've done a few firefox plugins and really thought the way it's internal templating worked was quite elegant. I'd love something similar for Catalyst. The way overlays worked, for example fit my brain a lot better than the way we generally use includes in TT. Is your scheme a format which, when rendered as html, defines the form and, when parsed appropriately, provides the form validation too? As in: - Chris ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/ ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/
Re: [Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms
Great input and insight, thanks! My comment was perhaps more oriented to using a common declarative validation idiom such as an xml schema because with this particular project, I found myself maintaining FormBuilder YAML files and XSDs. Then I decided to convert HTML to XML and use the common XSD for both. Since most decent XML parsers already perform the validation, and they are usually quite fast, I thought that perhaps something similar to the FormBuilder plug-in could be built that used an XML approach. I find your comments on JSON and model-to-DB very interesting but don't agree with all of it. I think that sane RDBMS modeling is still not going away for a while. regarding REST take a look at this project I'm working on and that is Catalyst-based: http://www.p2ee.org Cheers, Alejandro Imass On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 8:17 AM, John Napiorkowskijjn1...@yahoo.com wrote: --- On Thu, 8/6/09, Alejandro Imass alejandro.im...@gmail.com wrote: From: Alejandro Imass alejandro.im...@gmail.com Subject: [Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms To: The elegant MVC web framework catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Date: Thursday, August 6, 2009, 12:15 PM I did something cool these days for a client and was thinking that perhaps might be a cool plugin for Catalyst. I created a B2B app for a client that has both HTML and XML API. So I decided to convert the HTML/XHTML requests to XML, the same XML format as the XML API and validate both with the same XSD. Laziness, of course, of having to maintain an HTML field validation scheme PLUS an XSD validation scheme using LibXML. Hope you're following me here... So, it occurred to me that perhaps XSD validations can be perhaps more useful and powerful than Formbuilder's declarative validation oin yaml. I did an xforms based project a few years ago and enjoyed working with the system but unfortunately true xforms support has lagged in all the browsers. There are plugins but nothing native. I think most people have settled on a 'best 80%' of features via ajax style libs. submitting forms via json is a somewhat similar approach, although not as clean as the xforms approach, but at least it works. I do think the best approach is going to end up being similar to the way we deploy and use DBIx::Class, where we generally first model in Perl and then deploy to the target database engine. In other words you model your user interface expectations and then render the type you want. I this this is going to be more flexible than systems that validate the other way around. Does anyone here think this might be interesting? Maybe it already exists, but the whole thing came out so cool, that I thought it might be useful for the Catalyst / Perl world in general. Although Perl has pretty good XML support, with multiple parsers, both DOM and SAX based, there doesn't seem to be strong excitement around it. I don't think most of the developers around here like XML based configuration files (think they are too verbose) and you don't see a lot of love for XSLT or similar. Again, I think it's about pragmatism, where JSON approaches get you most of the way for less effort. Also the XML camps seem to be somewhat offish to the Perl community. Maybe it's just me but seems like all the examples are Python or Java. There's a certain amount of academia driving XML, or big enterprises, and both groups tend to treat the Perl programming language as something left over rather than something to be excited about. Axkit is a web development system that's totally XML driven, you might want to take a look. Also part of your interest might fit well with the various REST projects going on. I think if you're approach is that XML is the transport rather than the framework you'd get more interest. ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/ ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/ ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/
Re: [Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms
My comment was perhaps more oriented to using a common declarative validation idiom such as an xml schema because with this particular project, I found myself maintaining FormBuilder YAML files and XSDs. Then I decided to convert HTML to XML and use the common XSD for both. Since most decent XML parsers already perform the validation, and they are usually quite fast, I thought that perhaps something similar to the FormBuilder plug-in could be built that used an XML approach. I like the idea of a single 'base format' which can be used to drive the validation and the form layout too. Is your scheme a format which, when rendered as html, defines the form and, when parsed appropriately, provides the form validation too? As in: form input type=text id=abc format=integer /br / input type=submit / /form - Chris ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/
Re: [Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms
--- On Thu, 8/6/09, Alejandro Imass alejandro.im...@gmail.com wrote: From: Alejandro Imass alejandro.im...@gmail.com Subject: [Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms To: The elegant MVC web framework catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Date: Thursday, August 6, 2009, 12:15 PM I did something cool these days for a client and was thinking that perhaps might be a cool plugin for Catalyst. I created a B2B app for a client that has both HTML and XML API. So I decided to convert the HTML/XHTML requests to XML, the same XML format as the XML API and validate both with the same XSD. Laziness, of course, of having to maintain an HTML field validation scheme PLUS an XSD validation scheme using LibXML. Hope you're following me here... So, it occurred to me that perhaps XSD validations can be perhaps more useful and powerful than Formbuilder's declarative validation oin yaml. I did an xforms based project a few years ago and enjoyed working with the system but unfortunately true xforms support has lagged in all the browsers. There are plugins but nothing native. I think most people have settled on a 'best 80%' of features via ajax style libs. submitting forms via json is a somewhat similar approach, although not as clean as the xforms approach, but at least it works. I do think the best approach is going to end up being similar to the way we deploy and use DBIx::Class, where we generally first model in Perl and then deploy to the target database engine. In other words you model your user interface expectations and then render the type you want. I this this is going to be more flexible than systems that validate the other way around. Does anyone here think this might be interesting? Maybe it already exists, but the whole thing came out so cool, that I thought it might be useful for the Catalyst / Perl world in general. Although Perl has pretty good XML support, with multiple parsers, both DOM and SAX based, there doesn't seem to be strong excitement around it. I don't think most of the developers around here like XML based configuration files (think they are too verbose) and you don't see a lot of love for XSLT or similar. Again, I think it's about pragmatism, where JSON approaches get you most of the way for less effort. Also the XML camps seem to be somewhat offish to the Perl community. Maybe it's just me but seems like all the examples are Python or Java. There's a certain amount of academia driving XML, or big enterprises, and both groups tend to treat the Perl programming language as something left over rather than something to be excited about. Axkit is a web development system that's totally XML driven, you might want to take a look. Also part of your interest might fit well with the various REST projects going on. I think if you're approach is that XML is the transport rather than the framework you'd get more interest. ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/ ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/
[Catalyst] XSD Validation of Forms
I did something cool these days for a client and was thinking that perhaps might be a cool plugin for Catalyst. I created a B2B app for a client that has both HTML and XML API. So I decided to convert the HTML/XHTML requests to XML, the same XML format as the XML API and validate both with the same XSD. Laziness, of course, of having to maintain an HTML field validation scheme PLUS an XSD validation scheme using LibXML. Hope you're following me here... So, it occurred to me that perhaps XSD validations can be perhaps more useful and powerful than Formbuilder's declarative validation oin yaml. Does anyone here think this might be interesting? Maybe it already exists, but the whole thing came out so cool, that I thought it might be useful for the Catalyst / Perl world in general. ___ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/
