Verification

Before input file data can be accessed, it must first be verified by calling the verify() method of the top-level Inlet object. This will return a bool indicating whether the provided input conformed to the schema and specific violations of the schema are logged via SLIC.

This section describes the verification rules that apply to each possible element of the Inlet hierarchy, namely, Container, Field, and Function.

Container Verification

If a Container is marked as required (via the required()) method, then the Container must have a Field or Function that was present in the input or contain a sub-Container that does. This does not apply to a Container that corresponds to an array or dictionary, as empty collections provided by the user are considered valid. Consider the following definition and input file:

addIntArray("foo").required();

foo = { }

Inlet verification will succeed for the above snippets.

If a Container corresponds to an array or dictionary, the elements of the array must all be of the requested type, if any were provided. This restriction applies even if the array/dictionary was not marked as required.

If a verification function was provided via the registerVerifier() method, this function must return true when passed the corresponding Container object.

Note

Since a Container represents internal nodes in the Inlet hierarchy, its verification status is dependent on that of its child objects. A Container is only considered valid if all of its child Container, Field, and Function objects are also valid.

Field Verification

If a Field is marked as required (via the required()) method, then a value must be provided in the input.

Providing a value of the wrong type will result in verification failure, even if the field was not marked as required.

If a range (inclusive upper/lower bounds) of valid values is specified with the range() method, both the provided value (if applicable) and default value (if specified with defaultValue()) must fall within the range.

If a set of valid values is specified with the validValues() method, both the provided value (if applicable) and default value (if specified with defaultValue()) must be included in the set.

If a verification function was provided via the registerVerifier() method, this function must return true when passed the corresponding Field object.

Function Verification

If a Function is marked as required (via the required()) method, then a function must be provided in the input.

If a verification function was provided via the registerVerifier() method, this function must return true when passed the corresponding Function object.

Unexpected Entries in Input Files

In order to better detect user error, e.g., misspelled names, Inlet provides a method to retrieve the names of entries in the input file that were not requested in the schema definition phase. Given a top-level Inlet object named inlet, the names can be retrieved as follows:

std::unordered_set<std::string> unexpected_names = inlet.unexpectedNames();