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Validates that a value is of a specific data type. For example, if a variable should be an array, you can use this constraint with the array type option to validate this.

Applies to property or method
Class Type
Validator TypeValidator

Basic Usage

This constraint should be applied to untyped variables/properties. If a property or variable is typed and you pass a value of a different type, PHP will throw an exception before this constraint is checked.

The following example checks if emailAddress is an instance of Symfony\Component\Mime\Address, firstName is of type string (using is_string PHP function), age is an integer (using is_int PHP function) and accessCode contains either only letters or only digits (using ctype_alpha and ctype_digit PHP functions).

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// src/Entity/Author.php
namespace App\Entity;

use Symfony\Component\Mime\Address;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

class Author
{
    #[Assert\Type(Address::class)]
    protected $emailAddress;

    #[Assert\Type('string')]
    protected $firstName;

    #[Assert\Type(
        type: 'integer',
        message: 'The value {{ value }} is not a valid {{ type }}.',
    )]
    protected $age;

    #[Assert\Type(type: ['alpha', 'digit'])]
    protected $accessCode;
}

Note

As with most of the other constraints, null is considered a valid value. This is to allow the use of optional values. If the value is mandatory, a common solution is to combine this constraint with NotNull.

Options

groups

type: array | string default: null

It defines the validation group or groups of this constraint. Read more about validation groups.

message

type: string default: This value should be of type {{ type }}.

The message if the underlying data is not of the given type.

You can use the following parameters in this message:

Parameter Description
{{ type }} The expected type
{{ value }} The current (invalid) value
{{ label }} Corresponding form field label

payload

type: mixed default: null

This option can be used to attach arbitrary domain-specific data to a constraint. The configured payload is not used by the Validator component, but its processing is completely up to you.

For example, you may want to use several error levels to present failed constraints differently in the front-end depending on the severity of the error.

type

type: string or array [default option]

This required option defines the type or collection of types allowed for the given value. Each type is either the FQCN (fully qualified class name) of some PHP class/interface or a valid PHP datatype (checked by PHP's is_() functions):

Also, you can use ctype_*() functions from corresponding built-in PHP extension. Consider a list of ctype functions:

Make sure that the proper locale is set before using one of these.

Finally, you can use aggregated functions:

  • number: is_int || is_float && !is_nan
  • finite-float: is_float && is_finite
  • finite-number: is_int || is_float && is_finite

6.4

number, finite-float and finite-number were introduced in Symfony 6.4.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
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