How to Apply only a Subset of all Your Validation Constraints (Validation Groups)

By default, when validating an object all constraints of this class will be checked whether or not they actually pass. In some cases, however, you will need to validate an object against only some constraints on that class. To do this, you can organize each constraint into one or more "validation groups" and then apply validation against just one group of constraints.

For example, suppose you have a User class, which is used both when a user registers and when a user updates their contact information later:

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// src/AppBundle/Entity/User.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;

use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\UserInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

class User implements UserInterface
{
    /**
     * @Assert\Email(groups={"registration"})
     */
    private $email;

    /**
     * @Assert\NotBlank(groups={"registration"})
     * @Assert\Length(min=7, groups={"registration"})
     */
    private $password;

    /**
     * @Assert\Length(min=2)
     */
    private $city;
}

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# src/AppBundle/Resources/config/validation.yml
AppBundle\Entity\User:
    properties:
        email:
            - Email: { groups: [registration] }
        password:
            - NotBlank: { groups: [registration] }
            - Length: { min: 7, groups: [registration] }
        city:
            - Length:
                min: 2

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<!-- src/AppBundle/Resources/config/validation.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<constraint-mapping xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd
    ">

    <class name="AppBundle\Entity\User">
        <property name="email">
            <constraint name="Email">
                <option name="groups">
                    <value>registration</value>
                </option>
            </constraint>
        </property>

        <property name="password">
            <constraint name="NotBlank">
                <option name="groups">
                    <value>registration</value>
                </option>
            </constraint>
            <constraint name="Length">
                <option name="min">7</option>
                <option name="groups">
                    <value>registration</value>
                </option>
            </constraint>
        </property>

        <property name="city">
            <constraint name="Length">
                <option name="min">7</option>
            </constraint>
        </property>
    </class>
</constraint-mapping>

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// src/AppBundle/Entity/User.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

class User
{
    public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
    {
        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('email', new Assert\Email(array(
            'groups' => array('registration'),
        )));

        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('password', new Assert\NotBlank(array(
            'groups' => array('registration'),
        )));
        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('password', new Assert\Length(array(
            'min'    => 7,
            'groups' => array('registration'),
        )));

        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('city', new Assert\Length(array(
            "min" => 3,
        )));
    }
}

With this configuration, there are three validation groups:

Default

Contains the constraints in the current class and all referenced classes that belong to no other group.

User

Equivalent to all constraints of the User object in the Default group. This is always the name of the class. The difference between this and Default is explained in How to Sequentially Apply Validation Groups.

registration

Contains the constraints on the email and password fields only.

Constraints in the Default group of a class are the constraints that have either no explicit group configured or that are configured to a group equal to the class name or the string Default.

To tell the validator to use a specific group, pass one or more group names as the third argument to the validate() method:

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// If you're using the new 2.5 validation API (you probably are!)
$errors = $validator->validate($author, null, array('registration'));

// If you're using the old 2.4 validation API, pass the group names as the second argument
// $errors = $validator->validate($author, array('registration'));

If no groups are specified, all constraints that belong to the group Default will be applied.

Of course, you'll usually work with validation indirectly through the form library. For information on how to use validation groups inside forms, see How to Define the Validation Groups to Use.