CacheControl / CacheControl/json-rules-engine

Supporting optional jsonValueValidator in Operator class?

Open
#412 3 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
3.1k
Forks
507
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

In the documentation on JSON rules engine operators it states that the fact passed to the contains/notContains operators must be arrays. And I see in the [Operator class](https://github.com/CacheControl/json-rules-engine/blob/master/src/operator.js#L8) that a factValueValidator function can be [supplied to the constructor](https://github.com/CacheControl/json-rules-engine/blob/master/src/engine-default-operators.js) to ensure that the fact supplied to this operator meets that expectation.

Similarly, the documentation states that for in/notIn operators, the value side of the comparison must be an array. But unlike contains/notContains, there's no validation in place to check that this is the case. And that means you don't have the same graceful handling when a non-array value is passed where an array is expected. A minimal-ish example to illustrate how in/notIn are not symmetrical to contains/notContains:

```
const { Engine } = require('json-rules-engine');

const facts = {
people: {
someguy: 'dave',
otherguys: ['hal', 'stanley', 'alex']
},
};

// This rule will throw an error because the path $.nonexistentPath evaluates to undefined and b.indexOf(a) throws an error
const operatorInWithNonexistentValuePathRule = {
conditions: {
all: [
{
fact: 'people',
path: '$.someguy',
operator: 'in', // notIn produces the same error
value: {
fact: 'people',
path: '$.nonexistentpath'
}
}
]
},
event: {
type: 'in-with-nonexistent-value-path-rule',
}
};

// This rule will NOT throw an error because contains operator is defined with a factValueValidator that will return false if the factValue is not an array
const operatorContainsWithNonexistentFactPathRule = {
conditions: {
all: [
{
fact: 'people',
path: '$.nonexistentpath',
operator: 'contains',
value: {
fact: 'people',
path: '$.someguy'
}
}
]
},
event: {
type: 'contains-with-nonexistent-fact-path-rule',
}
};

function runEngine(
rule,
facts
){

const engine = new Engine();
engine.addRule(rule);

engine
.run(facts)
.then(({ failureEvents }) => {
failureEvents.map(event => console.log(event));
})
.catch(console.error);
}

runEngine(operatorInWithNonexistentValuePathRule, facts);
runEngine(operatorContainsWithNonexistentFactPathRule, facts);

```

I'm curious if this is the intentional/desired behavior here? Naively I would've expected that in/notIn operators can (and would) validate values similarly to how contains/notContains validate facts. I think this could be accomplished with a minor rewrite to the Operator class, something like:

```
'use strict'

export default class Operator {
/**
* Constructor
* @param {string} name - operator identifier
* @param {function(factValue, jsonValue)} callback - operator evaluation method
* @param {function} [factValueValidator] - optional validator for asserting the data type of the fact
* @param {function} [jsonValueValidator] - optional validator for asserting the data type of the "value" property of the condition
* @returns {Operator} - instance
*/
constructor (name, cb, factValueValidator) {
this.name = String(name)
if (!name) throw new Error('Missing operator name')
if (typeof cb !== 'function') throw new Error('Missing operator callback')
this.cb = cb
this.factValueValidator = factValueValidator
if (!this.factValueValidator) this.factValueValidator = () => true
this.jsonValueValidator = jsonValueValidator
if (!this.jsonValueValidator) this.jsonValueValidator = () => true
}

/**
* Takes the fact result and compares it to the condition 'value', using the callback
* @param {mixed} factValue - fact result
* @param {mixed} jsonValue - "value" property of the condition
* @returns {Boolean} - whether the values pass the operator test
*/
evaluate (factValue, jsonValue) {
return this.factValueValidator(factValue) && this.jsonValueValidator(jsonValue) && this.cb(factValue, jsonValue)
}
}
```

And tweaking the [initialization of the default engine operators](https://github.com/CacheControl/json-rules-engine/blob/master/src/engine-default-operators.js). If there's interest in doing something along these lines I'd be glad to try and throw together a small PR.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.