Data coercions

[fgarcia]

Is there any plan for adding field coercion along the validations?

[busypeoples]

We could think about adding this feature. Thanks for the input!

[fgarcia]

Great! I absolutely like your functional approach. Validations is a great use case for FP.

It is also clear that one could build a layer on top to build objects returning an Either monad where the Left value is a result from spected. However the cut and focus on validations is great. People get the best of FP without having to understand FP.

I can build more abstractions on top, but I am not so sure about coercions. I have the feeling that the most elegant solution is a combination of validation and coercions, but I can't figure out a clean/simple way to do it.

[busypeoples]

Thank you very much for the feedback! Highly appreciated. Regarding coercions, yes this needs some thinking for sure.

[fgarcia]

If it helps, this is my line of thought:

const normalizeString = (rules, {default}) => (value, f) => {
  let before = value || 'anonymous'

  let result = f(before)
  // ignoring failed case 
  let after = _.toLowerCase(value)

  return ... // after? custom struct? monad?
}

const validationRules = {
  name: normalizeString([
    [ isGreaterThan(5),
      `Minimum Name length of 6 is required.`
    ],
  ]),
}

After doing the coercion with normalizeString I noticed that:

1. Coercions / Transformations might be done before AND after the validation
2. It must be a higher order function
3. The Either monad seems a good option, but using monads might put off many people

[busypeoples]

Good points. Will also think about how we can makes this efficient. Regarding Either, agree, if we can avoid exposing it in user land would be helpful for adoption.

[fgarcia]

I must retract myself in one of the points. Now I believe coercions must be done before validation. Any modification after validation seems to me now awfully conflicting (like setting invalid values)