obj_diff

Identify and assert differences betwen objects

obj_diff is for examining changes between Javascript and JSON objects. Use it to see how data has changed and to decide whether that change is good or bad. Thus obj_diff is useful for security and validation.

obj_diff comes from an internal Iris Couch application used in production for two years. It works in the browser, in CouchDB, and as an NPM module.

npm install obj_diff

Is it any good?

Yes.

Usage

Diff two objects. Then use helper functions to see what's changed.

var obj_diff = require("obj_diff");
 
var original = { hello:"world"     , note: {"nice":"shoes"} };
var modified = { hello:"underworld", note: {"nice":"hat"  } };
 
var diff = obj_diff(original, modified);
 
// Mandatory changes
if(diff.atleast("hello", "world", "underworld"))    // true
  console.log("That's kind of dark");
 
 
// Approved changes
if(diff.atmost("hello", "world", "underworld"))     // false (.hello.note.nice also changed)
  console.log("That's kind of dark");
 
 
if(diff.atmost("hello"          , "world", /world/, // true
               "hello.note.nice", "shoes", String))
  console.log("Hooray!");

Design

To work well with databases, obj_diff has these design goals:

• Declarative. Data validation is crucial. It must be correct. Validation rules must be easy to express clearly and easy to reason about.
• JSON compatible. Diffs and validation rules (containing regexes, functions, etc.) can be encoded and decoded as JSON, without losing functionality. You can store changes and validation policies as plain JSON.

Mandatory vs. Approved changes

There is a symbiotic relationship between atleast and atmost:

• atleast() returns true only if every rule matches a change.
• atmost() returns true only if every change matches a rule.

// Give a key name, an expected old value, and expected new value.
diff.atleast("some_key", "old_value", "new_value");
 
// Specify multiple rules simultaneously.
diff.atleast(
 
  // Nested objects: just type them out in the string.
  "options.production.log.level", "debug", "info",
 
  // Regular expressions, e.g. first letter must change from "J" to "S".
  "name", /^J/, /^S/,
 
  // ANY matches any value.
  "state", obj_diff.ANY, "run", // State must become "run".
  "owner", null, obj_diff.ANY,  // Owner must become non-null.
 
  // GONE implies a missing value.
  "error", "locked", obj_diff.GONE, // Error must be deleted.
  "child", obj_diff.GONE, "Bob",    // Child must be created.
 
  // FALSY matches false, null, undefined, the empty string, 0, NaN, and a missing value.
  "is_new", obj_diff.ANY, obj_diff.FALSY,
 
  // "TRUTHY" matches anything not falsy.
  "changed", obj_diff.GONE, obj_diff.TRUTHY,
 
  // Javascript types
  "ratio"  , undefined    , Number , // Numeric ratio, note undefined is not GONE
  "age"    , obj_diff.ANY , Number , // Age must change to something numeric.
  "name"   , obj_diff.GONE, String , // Must create a name string.
  "deleted", obj_diff.ANY , Boolean, // Deleted flag must be true/false.
  "config" , obj_diff.GONE, Object , // Must create a config object.
  "backups", null         , Array  , // Null backups must become an array.
 
  // TIMESTAMP matches ISO-8601 strings (what JSON.stringify makes from a Date)
  "created_at", GONE, TIMESTAMP, // e.g. "2011-11-10T04:21:45.046Z"
 
  // GREATER and LESSER compare a value to its counterpart.
  "age", Number, GREATER, // Age must increase in number
  "age", LESSER, Number,  // (same as the previous test)
 
  "weight", GREATER, LESSER , // Mandatory weight loss
  "age"   , 21 , GREATER,     // Must increase from 21
 
  "WRONG", GREATER, GREATER, // This always fails.
  "WRONG", LESSER , LESSER , // This always fails.
 
  // Use functions (predicates) for arbitrary data validation
  "weapon", obj_diff.ANY, good_weapon
);
 
diff.atmost(
  // Changing my weapon is fine.
  "weapon", obj_diff.ANY, good_weapon,
 
  // Changing my first name to something readable is fine.
  "name.first", obj_diff.ANY, /^\w+$/,
 
  // People named "Smith" may change their last name.
  "name.last", "Smith", /^\w+$/,
 
  // Middle must be just an initial.
  "name.middle", obj_diff.ANY, /^\w$/
);
 
// Or as an assertion, with an extra "reason" argument.
try {
  diff.assert_atleast(
    "some_key"         , "must become new new" , "old_value" , "new_value",
    "options.log.level", "must upgrade to info", "debug"     , "info",
    "name"             , "must start with 'S'" , obj_diff.ANY, /^S/,
    "weapon"           , "cannot be sharp"     , obj_diff.ANY, good_weapon
  );
} catch (er) {
  if(!er.diff)
    throw er; // Unknown error, not a policy failure, e.g. bad parameters, or a predicate error.
 
  console.error("Hey! " + er.message); // e.g. Hey! options.log.level must upgrade to info
}
 
try {
  diff.assert_atmost(
    "weapon"     , "cannot be sharp"       , obj_diff.ANY, good_weapon,
    "name.first" , "must be readable"      , obj_diff.ANY, /^\w+$/,
    "name.last"  , "may no longer be Smith", "Smith"     , /^\w+$/,
    "name.middle", "must be one letter"    , obj_diff.ANY, /^\w$/
  );
} catch (er) {
  if(!er.diff)
    throw er; // Unknown error
 
  // .reason, .key, .from, .to are available.
  console.error(er.key + " is wrong because it " + er.reason); // detailed
}
 
function good_weapon(weapon) {
  return weapon != process.env.sharp_weapon;
}

A useful trick with atmost() is to assert no changes.

try {
  diff2.assert_atmost();   // No rules given, i.e. "zero changes, at most"
  diff2.assert_nochange(); // Same as atmost() but more readable.
} catch (er) {
  console.error("Sorry, no changes allowed");
}

CouchDB validation

obj_diff excels (and was designed for) Apache CouchDB validate_doc_update() functions. Combine atleast() and atmost() to make a sieve and sift out good and bad changes. obj_diff cannot replace all validation code, but it augments it well.

• atleast() confirms required changes.
• atmost() confirms allowed changes.

First of all, CouchDB changes document metadata under the hood, and you don't want that triggering false alarms. So the first thing is to set obj_diff's defaults for CouchDB mode, which modifies atmost() to allow normal document changes:

1. null is treated as an empty object, {}. This always works: doc_diff(oldDoc, newDoc)
2. atmost() allows normal changes:

• _id for document creation
• _rev may change appropriately.
• _revisions.ids and _revisions.start may change appropriately.

1. assert_atleast() and assert_atmost() throw {"forbidden": <reason>} objects that Couch likes.

Thus, this is your typical validate_doc_update function:

function(newDoc, oldDoc, userCtx, secObj) {
  var doc_diff = require("obj_diff").defaults({"couchdb":true}) // Relaxed diff.
    , ANY      = doc_diff.ANY
    , GONE     = doc_diff.GONE
    ;
 
  var diff = doc_diff(oldDoc, newDoc);
  // Start validating!
}

Valid data vs. valid changes

obj_diff validates changes, not data. What happens if you GET a document and PUT it back unmodified? There will be zero changes in the diff. Any atleast() checks will necessarily fail. Therefore, the best practice is to check the data and then apply certain policies based on that.

Of course, sometimes you want changes in every update, such as timestamp validation:

if(!oldDoc)
  // Creation, require the timestamp fields.
  diff.assert_atleast(
    'created_at', 'timestamp required', GONE, TIMESTAMP,
    'updated_at', 'timestamp required', GONE, newDoc.created_at // Must match created_at
  );
else
  // Update, exact() will reject changes to .created_at (and all other fields)
  diff.assert_exactly(
    'updated_at', 'Must be a timestamp'  , TIMESTAMP, TIMESTAMP,
    'updated_at', 'Must be later in time', TIMESTAMP, GREATER
  );

Example: User Documents

TODO

JSON Support

obj_diff supports regular expressions and function callbacks in its rules. Yet it can be nice to store them as JSON, and to load them later. For example, you could store a few rules in a CouchDB _security object, and do database-specific data validation with an identical validate_doc_update() function.

Both Diff and Rule obejcts behave the same after a JSON round-trip. They have a .toJSON function to handle things, so just JSON.stringify() them and store them in a file or database. Later, JSON.parse() them and pass the object to the constructors.

var obj_diff = require("obj_diff");
 
function good_guy(guy) { return guy.good || guy.awesome }
 
var diffs =
  [ obj_diff({some_key: "old_value"}, {some_key: "new_value"})
  , obj_diff({log: {level: "Anything!"}}, {log: {level: "info"}})
  , obj_diff({guy: {"good":true}}, {guy:"Fawkes"})
  ];
 
var rules =
  [ new obj_diff.Rule("some_key", "old_value", "new_value")
  , new obj_diff.Rule("log.level", obj_diff.ANY, /^(debug|info|error)$/)
  , new obj_diff.Rule("guy", good_guy, obj_diff.ANY)
  ];
 
console.log("Diffs: " + JSON.stringify(diffs));
console.log("Rules: " + JSON.stringify(rules));

Note, functions are stored using their source code, so be careful about global or closed variables they depend on.

Development

obj_diff uses node-tap unit tests. Install it globally (npm -g install node-tap) and run tap t. Or for a more robust local install:

$ npm install --dev
tap@0.0.10 ./node_modules/tap
└── tap-runner@0.0.7

$ ./node_modules/.bin/tap t
ok api.js ......................... 82/82
ok diffs.js ....................... 60/60
ok policy.js .................... 123/123
ok rules.js ..................... 774/774
total ......................... 1043/1043

ok

Finally, you can use the diff object yourself. Here's what it looks like:

> obj_diff({x:"hi"}, {x:"bye"})
{ x: { from: 'hi', to: 'bye' } }

> obj_diff({name:"Joe", word:"hi"},
...        {name:"Joe", word:"bye"})
{ word: { from: 'hi', to: 'bye' } }

> obj_diff({name:"Joe", contact: {email:"[e-mail]"}},
...        {name:"Joe", contact: {email:"[e-mail]", cell:"555-1212"}})
{ contact: { cell: { from: ['gone'], to: '555-1212' } } }

> obj_diff({name:"Joe", contact: {email:"[e-mail]", cell:null      }},
...        {name:"Joe", contact: {email:"[e-mail]", cell:"555-1212"}})
{ contact: { cell: { from: null, to: '555-1212' } } }

License

obj_diff is licensed under the Apache License, version 2.0