govalidator
A Go package providing validators and sanitizers for strings, numerics, slices, and structs.
What is govalidator?
Govalidator is a Go library that provides a comprehensive set of validators and sanitizers for strings, numbers, slices, and structs. It solves the problem of ensuring data correctness and security in Go applications by offering built-in validation for common formats (like emails, URLs, IPs) and extensible custom validation rules.
Go developers building web services, APIs, or any backend application that requires robust input validation and data sanitization.
Developers choose Govalidator for its extensive built-in validators, easy struct and map validation via tags, and flexibility to add custom rules, making it a one-stop solution for data validation in Go projects.
Overview
[Go] Package of validators and sanitizers for strings, numerics, slices and structs
Use Cases
Best For
- Validating user input in Go web applications and APIs
- Ensuring struct fields meet specific format requirements (e.g., email, URL)
- Sanitizing strings by removing unwanted characters or normalizing data
- Validating nested map structures in configuration or request data
- Adding custom validation logic for domain-specific business rules
- Checking data types and formats before database operations
Not Ideal For
- Projects requiring compile-time validation errors instead of runtime checks
- High-performance systems where validation overhead must be minimized
- Teams using Go frameworks with built-in validation bindings (e.g., Gin's binding)
- Applications needing validation schemas defined in JSON/YAML for cross-language use
Pros & Cons
Pros
Includes validators for emails, URLs, IPs, UUIDs, credit cards, and many common formats, reducing the need for custom code.
Uses struct tags to define validation rules, making it easy to annotate fields with requirements like 'required' or 'email'.
Supports adding custom validators with parameterized tags and context-aware functions for domain-specific logic.
Provides functions like WhiteList and BlackList for cleaning strings, plus trimming and normalization operations.
Cons
The README's TODO list admits missing validators like IsFQDN and IsIMEI, requiring custom work for some formats.
Recent updates changed custom validator signatures and registration methods, causing migration issues for existing code.
Relies on reflection and runtime tag evaluation, which can impact performance and lacks compile-time safety.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
validator:100:Go Struct and Field validation, including Cross Field, Cross Struct, Map, Slice and Array diving
ozzo-validationAn idiomatic Go (golang) validation package. Supports configurable and extensible validation rules (validators) using normal language constructs instead of error-prone struct tags.
govalidatorValidate Golang request data with simple rules. Highly inspired by Laravel's request validation.
ZogGo with Zod inspired simple schema validation
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