h1. Ruby JSON Schema Validator

This library is intended to provide Ruby with an interface for validating JSON objects against a JSON schema conforming to "JSON Schema Draft 4":http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-04. Legacy support for "JSON Schema Draft 3":http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-03, "JSON Schema Draft 2":http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-02, and "JSON Schema Draft 1":http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-01 is also included.

h2. Version 2.0.0 Upgrade Notes

Please be aware that the upgrade to version 2.0.0 will use Draft-04 *by default*, so schemas that do not declare a validator using the <code>$schema</code> keyword will use Draft-04 now instead of Draft-03. This is the reason for the major version upgrade.

h2. Dependencies

The JSON::Schema library has no dependencies if the validation methods are called using Ruby objects. However, either the <code>json</code> or the <code>yajl-ruby</code> gem needs to be installed to validate JSON strings or files containing JSON data.

h2. Installation

From rubygems.org:

<pre>
gem install json-schema
</pre>

From the git repo:

<pre>
$ gem build json-schema.gemspec
$ gem install json-schema-2.0.4.gem
</pre>


h2. Usage

Three base validation methods exist: <code>validate</code>, <code>validate!</code>, and <code>fully_validate</code>. The first returns a boolean on whether a validation attempt passes and the second will throw a <code>JSON::Schema::ValidationError</code> with an appropriate message/trace on where the validation failed. The third validation method does not immediately fail upon a validation error and instead builds an array of validation errors return when validation is complete.

All methods take two arguments, which can be either a JSON string, a file containing JSON, or a Ruby object representing JSON data. The first argument to these methods is always the schema, the second is always the data to validate. An optional third options argument is also accepted; available options are used in the examples below.

By default, the validator uses the "JSON Schema Draft 4":http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-04 specification for validation; however, the user is free to specify additional specifications or extend existing ones. Legacy support for Draft 1, Draft 2, and Draft 3 is included by either passing an optional <code>:version</code> parameter to the <code>validate</code> method (set either as <code>:draft1</code> or <code>draft2</code>), or by declaring the <code>$schema</code> attribute in the schema and referencing the appropriate specification URI. Note that the <code>$schema</code> attribute takes precedence over the <code>:version</code> option during parsing and validation.

h3. Validate Ruby objects against a Ruby schema

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

schema = {
  "type" => "object",
  "required" => ["a"],
  "properties" => {
    "a" => {"type" => "integer"}
  }
}

data = {
  "a" => 5
}

JSON::Validator.validate(schema, data)
</pre>

h3. Validate a JSON string against a JSON schema file

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

JSON::Validator.validate('schema.json', '{"a" : 5}')
</pre>

h3. Validate a list of objects against a schema that represents the individual objects

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

data = ['user','user','user']
JSON::Validator.validate('user.json', data, :list => true)
</pre>

h3. Catch a validation error and print it out

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

schema = {
  "type" => "object",
  "required" => ["a"],
  "properties" => {
    "a" => {"type" => "integer"}
  }
}

data = {
  "a" => "taco"
}

begin
  JSON::Validator.validate!(schema, data)
rescue JSON::Schema::ValidationError
  puts $!.message
end
</pre>


h3. Fully validate against a schema and catch all errors

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

schema = {
  "type" => "object",
  "required" => ["a","b"],
  "properties" => {
    "a" => {"type" => "integer"},
    "b" => {"type" => "string"}
  }
}

data = {
  "a" => "taco"
}

errors = JSON::Validator.fully_validate(schema, data)

# ["The property '#/a' of type String did not match the following type: integer in schema 03179a21-197e-5414-9611-e9f63e8324cd#", "The property '#/' did not contain a required property of 'b' in schema 03179a21-197e-5414-9611-e9f63e8324cd#"]
</pre>

h3. Fully validate against a schema and catch all errors as objects

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

schema = {
  "type" => "object",
  "required" => ["a","b"],
  "properties" => {
    "a" => {"type" => "integer"},
    "b" => {"type" => "string"}
  }
}

data = {
  "a" => "taco"
}

errors = JSON::Validator.fully_validate(schema, data, :errors_as_objects => true)

# [{:message=>"The property '#/a' of type String did not match the following type: integer in schema 03179a21-197e-5414-9611-e9f63e8324cd#", :schema=>#<URI::Generic:0x103a76198 URL:03179a21-197e-5414-9611-e9f63e8324cd#>, :failed_attribute=>"Type", :fragment=>"#/a"}, {:message=>"The property '#/' did not contain a required property of 'b' in schema 03179a21-197e-5414-9611-e9f63e8324cd#", :schema=>#<URI::Generic:0x103a76198 URL:03179a21-197e-5414-9611-e9f63e8324cd#>, :failed_attribute=>"Properties", :fragment=>"#/"}]

</pre>

h3. Validate a JSON object against a JSON schema object, while also validating the schema itself

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

schema = {
  "type" => "object",
  "required" => ["a"],
  "properties" => {
    "a" => {"type" => "integer"}  # This will fail schema validation!
  }
}

data = {
  "a" => 5
}

JSON::Validator.validate(schema, data, :validate_schema => true)
</pre>

h3. Validate a JSON object against a JSON schema object, while inserting default values from the schema

With the :insert_defaults option set to true any missing property that has a
default value specified in the schema will be inserted into the validated data. The inserted default value is validated hence catching a schema that specifies an invalid default value.

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

schema = {
  "type" => "object",
  "required" => ["a"],
  "properties" => {
    "a" => {"type" => "integer", "default" => 42},
    "b" => {"type" => "integer"}
  }
}

# Would not normally validate because "a" is missing and required by schema,
# but "default" option allows insertion of valid default.
data = {
  "b" => 5
}

JSON::Validator.validate(schema, data)
# false

JSON::Validator.validate(schema, data, :insert_defaults => true)
# true
# data = {
#   "a" => 42,
#   "b" => 5
# }

</pre>
h3. Validate an object against a JSON Schema Draft 2 schema

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

schema = {
  "type" => "object",
  "properties" => {
    "a" => {"type" => "integer", "optional" => true}
  }
}

data = {
  "a" => 5
}

JSON::Validator.validate(schema, data, :version => :draft2)
</pre>


h3. Extend an existing schema and validate against it

For this example, we are going to extend the "JSON Schema Draft 3":http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-03 specification by adding a 'bitwise-and' property for validation.

<pre>
require 'rubygems'
require 'json-schema'

class BitwiseAndAttribute < JSON::Schema::Attribute
  def self.validate(current_schema, data, fragments, processor, validator, options = {})
    if data.is_a?(Integer) && data & current_schema.schema['bitwise-and'].to_i == 0
      message = "The property '#{build_fragment(fragments)}' did not evaluate  to true when bitwise-AND'd with  #{current_schema.schema['bitwise-or']}"
      raise JSON::Schema::ValidationError.new(message, fragments, current_schema)
    end
  end
end

class ExtendedSchema < JSON::Schema::Validator
  def initialize
    super
    extend_schema_definition("http://json-schema.org/draft-03/schema#")
    @attributes["bitwise-and"] = BitwiseAndAttribute
    @uri = URI.parse("http://test.com/test.json")
  end

  JSON::Validator.register_validator(self.new)
end

schema = {
  "$schema" => "http://test.com/test.json",
  "properties" => {
    "a" => {
      "bitwise-and" => 1
    },
    "b" => {
      "type" => "string"
    }
  }
}

data = {
  "a" => 0
}

data = {"a" => 1, "b" => "taco"}
JSON::Validator.validate(schema,data) # => true
data = {"a" => 1, "b" => 5}
JSON::Validator.validate(schema,data) # => false
data = {"a" => 0, "b" => "taco"}
JSON::Validator.validate(schema,data) # => false
</pre>

h2. JSON Backends

The JSON Schema library currently supports the <code>json</code> and <code>yajl-ruby</code> backend JSON parsers. If either of these libraries are installed, they will be automatically loaded and used to parse any JSON strings supplied by the user.

If more than one of the supported JSON backends are installed, the <code>yajl-ruby</code> parser is used by default. This can be changed by issuing the following before validation:

<pre>
JSON::Validator.json_backend = :json
</pre>

Optionally, the JSON Schema library supports using the MultiJSON library for selecting JSON backends. If the MultiJSON library is installed, it will be autoloaded.

h2. Notes

The 'format' attribute is only validated for the following values:

* date-time
* date
* time
* ip-address
* ipv6

All other 'format' attribute values are simply checked to ensure the instance value is of the correct datatype (e.g., an instance value is validated to be an integer or a float in the case of 'utc-millisec').

Additionally, JSON::Validator does not handle any json hyperschema attributes.