Type

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;
}
    

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        # config/validator/validation.yaml
App\Entity\Author:
    properties:
        emailAddress:
            - Type:
                type: Symfony\Component\Mime\Address

        firstName:
            - Type:
                type: string

        age:
            - Type:
                type: integer
                message: The value {{ value }} is not a valid {{ type }}.

        accessCode:
            - Type:
                type: [alpha, digit]
    

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        <!-- config/validator/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 https://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd">

    <class name="App\Entity\Author">
        <property name="emailAddress">
            <constraint name="Type">
                <option name="type">Symfony\Component\Mime\Address</option>
            </constraint>
        </property>
        <property name="firstName">
            <constraint name="Type">
                <option name="type">string</option>
            </constraint>
        </property>
        <property name="age">
            <constraint name="Type">
                <option name="type">integer</option>
                <option name="message">The value {{ value }} is not a valid {{ type }}.</option>
            </constraint>
        </property>
        <property name="accessCode">
            <constraint name="Type">
                <option name="type">
                    <value>alpha</value>
                    <value>digit</value>
                </option>
            </constraint>
        </property>
    </class>
</constraint-mapping>
    

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

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

class Author
{
    // ...

    public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata): void
    {
        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('emailAddress', new Assert\Type(Address::class));

        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('firstName', new Assert\Type('string'));

        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('age', new Assert\Type(
            type: 'integer',
            message: 'The value {{ value }} is not a valid {{ type }}.',
        ));

        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('accessCode', new Assert\Type(
            type: ['alpha', 'digit'],
        ));
    }
}
    

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

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):

If you're dealing with arrays, you can use the following types in the constraint:

list which uses array_is_list internally
associative_array which is true for any non-empty array that is not a list

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.

7.1

The list and associative_array types were introduced in Symfony 7.1.

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

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

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