ValidGen

Validator is an amazing project. But in applications with high frequency use, the way that validator works (i.e. reflection) can cause performance penalty.

ValidGen born to solve that gap. Instead of use reflection, ValidGen uses the code generating approach.

At this time it is an unstable project and should not be used in production environments.

How to build ValidGen

The following requirements are needed to build the project:

• Git
• Go >= 1.24
• Make

The steps to build are:

# Clone the project repository
git clone git@github.com:opencodeco/validgen.git

# Enter in the project root folder
cd validgen

# Build the binary
make build

After that the executable will be in bin/validgen.

Validations

The following validations will be implemented:

• eq (equal): must be equal to the specified value
• eq_ignore_case (equal ignoring case): must be equal to the specified value (ignoring case)
• gt (greater than): must be > to the specified value
• gte (greater than or equal): must be >= to the specified value
• lt (less than): must be < to the specified value
• lte (less than or equal): must be <= to the specified value
• neq (not equal): must not be equal to the specified value
• neq_ignore_case (not equal ignoring case): must not be equal to the specified value (ignoring case)
• len (length): must have the following length
• max (max): must have no more than max characters
• min (min): must have no less than min characters
• in (in): must be one of the following values
• nin (not in): must not be one of the following values
• required (required): is required
• email (email): must be a valid email format (empty is valid for optional fields)

The following table shows the validations and possible types, where "I" means "Implemented", "W" means "Will be implemented" and "-" means "Will not be implemented":

Validation/Type	String	Numeric types	Boolean	Slice	Array	Map	Time	Duration
eq	I	W	W	-	-	-	W	W
eq_ignore_case	I	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
gt	-	W	-	-	-	-	W	W
gte	-	W	-	-	-	-	W	W
lt	-	W	-	-	-	-	W	W
lte	-	W	-	-	-	-	W	W
neq	I	W	W	-	-	-	W	W
neq_ignore_case	I	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
len	I	-	-	W	W	W	-	-
max	I	-	-	W	W	W	W	W
min	I	-	-	W	W	W	W	W
in	I	W	W	W	W	W	-	W
nin	I	W	W	W	W	W	-	W
required	I	W	W	W	W	W	W	W
email	I	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Steps to run the unit tests

The steps to run the unit tests are:

# Enter in the project root folder
cd validgen

# Run the unit tests
make unittests

Steps to run the benchmark tests

The steps to run the benchmark tests are:

# Enter in the project root folder
cd validgen

# Run the benchmark tests
make benchtests

Steps to run the end-to-end tests

The steps to run the end-to-end tests are:

# Enter in the project root folder
cd validgen

# Run the end-to-end tests
make endtoendtests

Steps to run the examples

All examples are in the _examples folder.

Steps to run test01

Test01 aims to be a case where all the files are in the same package (in this case, the main package).

# Runs validgen to generate structs validator code
./bin/validgen _examples/test01

After that the file user_validator.go will be generated. This file contains UserValidate function that is responsible to check if User object has a valid content.

# Execute the test
cd _examples/test01
go run .

Steps to run test02

Test02 aims to be an example where the structs to be validated are in another package (structsinpkg in this test).

# Runs validgen to generate structs validator code
./bin/validgen _examples/test02

After that the file user_validator.go will be generated. This file contains UserValidate function that is responsible to check if User object has a valid content.

# Execute the test
cd _examples/test02
go run .

Steps to run test03

Test03 aims to be an example where the structs to be validated use min and max tags.

# Runs validgen to generate structs validator code
./bin/validgen _examples/test03

After that the file user_validator.go will be generated. This file contains UserValidate function that is responsible to check if User object has a valid content.

# Execute the test
cd _examples/test03
go run .

Steps to run the benchmark tests comparing ValidGen and Validator

The steps to run the benchmark tests are:

# Enter in the project root folder
cd validgen

# Run the benchmark tests
make cmpbenchtests

The command make cmpbenchtests invoke the following command:

go test -bench=. -v -benchmem -benchtime=5s ./tests/cmpbenchtests/generated_tests

The setup used was:

goos: darwin
goarch: arm64
pkg: github.com/opencodeco/validgen/tests/cmpbenchtests/generated_tests
cpu: Apple M4 Pro (12 Cores used)

The following table as the performance results:

Test name	ValidGen	GoValidator	Performance
StringRequired	5.000 ns/op	40.12 ns/op	8.02x
StringEq	5.000 ns/op	39.90 ns/op	7.98x
StringEqIC	14.96 ns/op	40.63 ns/op	2.71x
StringNeq	5.000 ns/op	40.65 ns/op	8.13x
StringNeqIC	5.000 ns/op	41.05 ns/op	8.21x
StringLen	5.000 ns/op	44.35 ns/op	8.87x
StringMax	5.000 ns/op	45.15 ns/op	9.03x
StringMin	5.000 ns/op	45.10 ns/op	9.02x
StringIn	5.000 ns/op	49.75 ns/op	9.95x
StringEmail	167.4 ns/op	436.3 ns/op	2.60x

The following table as the raw results:

Test name	Iterations	Nanoseconds per operation	Number os bytes allocated per operation	Number of allocations per operation
BenchmarkValidGenStringRequired-12	1.000.000.000	5.000 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringRequired-12	149.656.641	40.12 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringEq-12	1.000.000.000	5.000 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringEq-12	150.419.842	39.90 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringEqIC-12	401.652.991	14.96 ns/op	8 B/op	1 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringEqIC-12	147.517.011	40.63 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringNeq-12	1.000.000.000	5.000 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringNeq-12	147.375.966	40.65 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringNeqIC-12	1.000.000.000	5.000 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringNeqIC-12	146.089.116	41.05 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringLen-12	1.000.000.000	5.000 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringLen-12	135.221.859	44.35 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringMax-12	1.000.000.000	5.000 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringMax-12	133.947.687	45.15 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringMin-12	1.000.000.000	5.000 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringMin-12	133.335.433	45.10 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringIn-12	1.000.000.000	5.000 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringIn-12	120.405.889	49.75 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidGenStringEmail-12	35.513.684	167.4 ns/op	0 B/op	0 allocs/op
BenchmarkValidatorStringEmail-12	13.740.566	436.3 ns/op	88 B/op	5 allocs/op

License

ValidGen uses MIT License.