README

THE SPARKLING NEW LANGUAGE FOR CHECKING THINGS IN A SANE WAY
Match scalars, arrays, objects and grumpy cats against the query of Your choice!

Checkout the chequer.stamina.pl for more information!

Oh wait! There is more!

Part of the package is DynamicObject class, which lets you dynamically create classes in PHP, modify object's methods on the fly, extend objects and moar! Go check it out! It's here to make typecasting easy, but it's pretty awesome on it's own!

Install

Use Composer package stamina/chequer-php to install.

The minimum required PHP version is 5.3. Because 5.4 introduces the shorthand array syntax - this version is recommended and used in this documentation.

php composer.phar require stamina/chequer-php

Usage and examples

Usage

There are a couple of usage patterns to choose from.

Simple checks

For simple checks use static function checkValue()

if (Cheque::checkValue($value, $query)) {}

Reusing the query

When you want to reuse your query, or pass it somewhere as a callback, create the object and call check method, or invoke the object.

// build the query object
$chequer = new Chequer($query);

// use it witch check()
if ($chequer->check($value)) {}

// or invoke it as a function
if ($chequer($value)) {}

// or pass it as a callback
array_filter($array, $chequer);

Global configuration

You can store all your queries in configuration files and use them when they are needed. This way you can separate your validation/filtering logic from your code - just like you do with the templates!

// load the rules from the JSON file
Chequer::addGlobalRules(json_decode(file_get_contents('queries.json'), JSON_OBJECT_AS_ARRAY));

// reuse them
if (Chequer::checkValue($value, ['$rule' => 'some_defined_rule'])) {}

As every query is a scalar or an array - they can be easely stored in JSON, YAML, MongoDB - you name it.

Dependency injection

If you rather prefer DI - fret not. You can add rules to Chequer objects directly, which means you can make a factory, or pass the Chequer object around and still populate it with predefined rules.

The above example rewritten as Silex factory:

// load the queries once
$app['chequer.rules'] = $app->share(function() {
        return json_decode(file_get_contents('queries.json'), JSON_OBJECT_AS_ARRAY);
    });
// always have a fresh chequer on hand
$app['chequer'] = function() use ($app) { 
    return (new Chequer())->addRules($app['chequer.rules']);
};

// reuse
if ($app['chequer']->query($value, ['$rule' => 'some_defined_rule'])) {}

Note, that the whole idea is very fresh. I've come up with the concept on January 29th, and made the lib the same day.
And that means - it will change!

©2013 Rafal Lindemann