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Krzysztof Szala
Krzysztof Szala

Posted on • Edited on

Validating nested objects with class-validator in NestJS

Today I have for you a quick and short article. Maybe it will help someone. I'm using class-validator for request validation in NestJS really often. A few days ago I needed to validate a nested object. Quick look to the class-validator validation:

If your object contains nested objects and you want the validator to perform their validation too, then you need to use the @ValidateNested() decorator:

import { ValidateNested } from 'class-validator';

export class Post {
  @ValidateNested()
  user: User;
}
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But for some reason It doesn't work in NestJS! Here is an easy solution. Install class-transformer package, if you haven't done it yet. Then import @Type() decorator, and declare the type of validating object with it. Check this out:

import { ValidateNested } from 'class-validator';
import { Type } from 'class-transformer';

export class Post {
  @ValidateNested()
  @Type(() => User)
  user: User;
}
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Now our NestJS application will validate User object correctly. If you need to validate an array of objects, use each: true:

export class User {
  @ValidateNested({ each: true })
  @Type(() => Post)
  posts: Post[];
}
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Hope it will be useful for you! Cheers!

Top comments (27)

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olustrrax profile image
dan's cat • Edited

I had received this error

TypeError: Cannot convert undefined or null to object

after I wrote something like this

  @IsArray()
  @ArrayNotEmpty()
  @ValidateNested({ each: true })
  @Type(() => UserDto)
  items: UserDto[]
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Why its does not work for me 😢

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avantar profile image
Krzysztof Szala

Are you sure that items property is not null / undefined? Maybe it didn't come in the request?

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olustrrax profile image
dan's cat

Finally I knew why it wasn't work for me. Because I wrote nested object in array more than couple layers. By the way I have fixed it by customized validate pipe when it received bad request exception. Now it works for me!

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oliverqueen2003 profile image
oliverqueen2003

Can you share your code?

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navinmishra1717 profile image
Navin Mishra • Edited

i was able to solve this problem with the help of custom recursive function in global validation pipe like this:

helper.js
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and in main.ts

Image description

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shanike profile image
Shani Kehati

Thanks

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avantar profile image
Krzysztof Szala

You’re welcome! 😄

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souhaildev profile image
Souhail Dev

it works! Thanks

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rolanday profile image
Roland Ayala

Right to the point, and just what I was looking for. Kudos, Thank you!

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volodymyr83 profile image
Volodymyr83 • Edited

Hi. Great article! But if an object in the array doesn't pass validation, I receive only
{
"statusCode": 500,
"message": "Internal server error"
}
How to get message with exact validation error?

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kanelv profile image
Cuong Le

I have faced the same problem. Did you solve it? Bro?

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adapting profile image
Albert

What about disallowing nested arrays within the array?

@ValidateNested({each: true})
@Type(() => myType)
myProp: myType[]
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allows the property to be both an array of arrays, or an array of objects with the form of myType, instead of only allowing it to be an array of objects.

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dekkaladiwakar profile image
Diwakar • Edited

Any solution for this? I want to allow only objects. @avantar

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rildomar_lucena profile image
Rildomar Lucena • Edited

Hello!

I'm having some problems with my validate errors.. When i tryed validate some object with one attribute is an array of object, the validate error doenst show message erro validation, only the property and value, but no showing the message.. example:

on my objectItem i have two attributes, like:

class ObjectItem {
   @IsString()
   @IsNotEmpty({ message: 'This field is required')
   attributeOne: string;

   @IsString()
   @IsNotEmpty({ message: 'This field is required')
   attributeTwo: string;
}

class ObjectFather {
   @IsArray()
  @IsObject({ each: true })
  @ValidateNested({
    each: true,
    message: 'Each value in items must be an object',
  })
  @Type(() => ObjectItem)
  components: ObjectItem[]
}
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but, i'm having this error on postman:
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Why the messate of attributeOne no showing with constraints?

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bassochette profile image
Julien Prugne

Thanks mate, really helpful :)

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avantar profile image
Krzysztof Szala

Glad I could help!

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elijahcorleone profile image
£.j

Dont Forget to add the @IsDefined() decorator as to check as might skip validation

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daygarcia profile image
Dayanne Garcia

Great article, thanks. But I'm struggling with something that looks simple, but I can't find nothing about this on internet

If i have a request like this:

[{
"name", "Azuki",
"age": 17
},
{
"name": "Luke"
"age": 18
}]

How can I validate?

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avantar profile image
Krzysztof Szala

But what do you want to validate exactly? That every object in array has valid structure?