validation - How to validate a property dependent on another property in Symfony 2

Question

Is it possible to validate a property of a model class dependent on another property of the same class?

For example, I have this class:

class Conference
{
    /** $startDate datetime */
    protected $startDate;

    /** $endDate datetime */
    protected $endDate;
}

and I want that Symfony 2.0 validates, that $startDate has to be after $endDate.

Is this possible by annotations or do I have to do this manually?

Answer 1

Starting from Symfony 2.4 you can also use Expression validation constraint to achieve what you need. I do believe, that this is the most simple way to do this. It's more convenient than Callback constraint for sure.

Here's example of how you can update your model class with validation constraints annotations:

use SymfonyComponentValidatorConstraints as Assert;


class Conference
{
    /**
     * @var DateTime
     *
     * @AssertExpression(
     *     "this.startDate <= this.endDate",
     *     message="Start date should be less or equal to end date!"
     * )
     */
    protected $startDate;

    /**
     * @var DateTime
     *
     * @AssertExpression(
     *     "this.endDate >= this.startDate",
     *     message="End date should be greater or equal to start date!"
     * )
     */
    protected $endDate;
}

Don't forget to enable annotations in your project configuration.

You can always do even more complex validations by using expression syntax.