Simple Data Cleaning and Verification

Notromda has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I've been using perl for a while, and hanging around the monastery for a while, but I can't seem to find (or ask the right question to the search engines) a set of simple routines to check data for validity, such as what one would read in from a web page.

I'm sure there are a lot of regex's that could do the job, and I've written a few myself, but is there any collection somewhere?

For example, it might be nice to do:

print "good" if isEmail($email);
print "good" if isCurrency($price);
print "good" if isDate($date);
print "good" if isPhoneNumber($phone);
print "good" if isPrintable($input);
[download]

and so on. Some functions are easy, some are more involved. Would this pass taint checking? Is there something like this already out there?

Comment on Simple Data Cleaning and Verification Download Code

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Re: Simple Data Cleaning and Verification by DamnDirtyApe (Curate) on Nov 07, 2002 at 22:49 UTC
Take a look at Regexp::Common; it has some similar functionality. As far as dates go, take a look at the documentation for Date::Manip; it shows you an easy way to validate a date. _______________ DamnDirtyApe Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. --Friedrich Nietzsche	[reply]
Re: Simple Data Cleaning and Verification by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Nov 07, 2002 at 23:16 UTC
The basic way of clearing a variable's taint flag is to apply the m// operator to the variable. The regex you use for the match determines the quality of your untainting. To wrap the match in a sub, you should use the aliased arguments rather than a copy, so that the taint flag is cleared for the external variable. For example, using the unicode printable test: `sub isPrintable { $_[0] =~ m/^\p(IsPrint)+$/; }` [download] The Regexp::Common module may be useful to you as a library. Email addresses are notoriously difficult. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Simple Data Cleaning and Verification by waswas-fng (Curate) on Nov 07, 2002 at 22:51 UTC
Data::FormValidator -Waswas	[reply]
Re: Simple Data Cleaning and Verification by perrin (Chancellor) on Nov 07, 2002 at 22:50 UTC
Head over to CPAN and search for "validate".	[reply]
Re: Simple Data Cleaning and Verification by adrianh (Chancellor) on Nov 08, 2002 at 11:48 UTC
For e-mail addresses you might want to consider Mail::CheckUser.	[reply]


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