Validation Generators

Validation generators produce FluentValidation validators that are type-aware – value types (int, bool, decimal) are automatically skipped since they always have default values.

Validation Attributes

Beyond automatic type-aware rules, you can declare validation attributes directly in your ninjadog.json property definitions. These are translated into FluentValidation rules at generation time.

JSON Configuration Example

{
  "Name": { "type": "String", "required": true, "maxLength": 100, "minLength": 2 },
  "Email": { "type": "String", "required": true, "pattern": "^[^@]+@[^@]+\\.[^@]+$" },
  "Age": { "type": "Int32", "min": 0, "max": 150 }
}

Generated Output

public partial class CreateContactRequestValidator : Validator<CreateContactRequest>
{
    public CreateContactRequestValidator()
    {
        RuleFor(x => x.Name)
            .NotEmpty()
            .WithMessage("Name is required!")
            .MinimumLength(2)
            .MaximumLength(100);

        RuleFor(x => x.Email)
            .NotEmpty()
            .WithMessage("Email is required!")
            .Matches("^[^@]+@[^@]+\\.[^@]+$");

        RuleFor(x => x.Age)
            .GreaterThanOrEqualTo(0)
            .LessThanOrEqualTo(150);

    }
}

Validation attributes compose with type-aware rules. A required string property gets both .NotEmpty() and any length or pattern constraints you define.

CreateRequestValidatorGenerator

| Scope | Per Entity | |—|—|

Generates validation rules for the Create request. Reference type properties get .NotEmpty() rules automatically.

Example Output

public partial class CreateTodoItemRequestValidator : Validator<CreateTodoItemRequest>
{
    public CreateTodoItemRequestValidator()
    {
        RuleFor(x => x.Title)
            .NotEmpty()
            .WithMessage("Title is required!");

        RuleFor(x => x.Description)
            .NotEmpty()
            .WithMessage("Description is required!");

        RuleFor(x => x.DueDate)
            .NotEmpty()
            .WithMessage("DueDate is required!");

    }
}

Notice that IsCompleted (bool), Priority (int), and Cost (decimal) are skipped because they are value types.

UpdateRequestValidatorGenerator

| Scope | Per Entity | |—|—|

Generates validation rules for the Update request, following the same type-aware pattern as the Create validator.