Configuration Validation

protoconf provides a way to add validation rules to your configuration. These rules allow you to ensure that the configuration values meet certain criteria before they are used by your application. Validation rules are written in separate Starlark files with the -validator suffix, and they are associated with your configuration using the add_validator function.

Writing a Validation Rule

Create a new Starlark file with the -validator suffix. For example, for a configuration defined in ./src/myproject/v1/server_config.proto, the validation file would be ./src/myproject/v1/server_config.proto-validator.

In this file, load the configuration message, define a validation function, and then add the validator:

load("//myproject/v1/server_config.proto", "ServerConfiguration")

def validate_server_config(config):
    if config.max_connections < 1:
        fail("max_connections must be at least 1")

    if config.max_payload_size_mb < 0.1 or config.max_payload_size_mb > 100.0:
        fail("max_payload_size_mb must be between 0.1 and 100.0")

    if config.request_timeout.seconds < 1:
        fail("request_timeout must be at least 1 second")

add_validator(ServerConfiguration, validate_server_config)

In this example, validate_server_config is a function that checks whether max_connections is at least 1, max_payload_size_mb is between 0.1 and 100.0, and request_timeout is at least 1 second. If any of these conditions is not met, the function calls fail() with an error message.

After defining the validation function, add_validator() is called to associate the validation function with the ServerConfiguration message. Now, whenever a ServerConfiguration object is created, its values will be validated according to these rules.

With validation in place, you can ensure that your configuration values are always within acceptable ranges, preventing errors due to incorrect configurations.