validateAndCreate fails when loading property that is DataCollection?

[wivaku]

Why does validation fail for this one?

class SongData extends Data
{
    public function __construct(
      // ...
    ) {
    }
}

class AlbumData extends Data
{
    public function __construct(
        // ...

        #[DataCollectionOf(SongData::class)]
        public DataCollection $songs,
    ) {
    }
}

// fails: the songs field must be an array  <===
AlbumData::validateAndCreate([
  // ...
  "songs" => SongData::collection($songs),
]);

// works
AlbumData::validateAndCreate([
  // ...
  "songs" => $songs,
]);

// works
AlbumData::from([
  // ...
  "songs" => SongData::collection($songs), // as collection
  // "songs" => $songs, // or as array
]);

So: from() works with array and DataCollection, but validateAndCreate() only works with array.

getValidationRules indeed shows:

  "songs" => array:2 [
    0 => "present"
    1 => "array"
  ]

But that logic / the flow is unclear to me. I specify $songs will be a DataCollection, I would then expect that the validator knows the DataCollection has an array "inside".

In general I find my self confused often about the difference between validateAndCreate and from.
I usually do want to validate the data (from array, not request), but after mapping/casting/etc, not before.

BTW it would be really helpful to bring the documentation pages more together / in sync. E.g. the quick guide mentions passing a regular array as nested collection using from, but the detailed collections page does not.

[rubenvanassche]

From won't do validation by default, validateAndCreate will which means the DataCollection is passed to the Laravel validator which doesn't know a DataCollection is an array basically. In v4 we'll fase out DataCollections in favor for arrays and collections which should fix this problem.

In general I find my self confused often about the difference between validateAndCreate and from.
I usually do want to validate the data (from array, not request), but after mapping/casting/etc, not before.

You can do this by changing the validation Pipe to always validate everything passed to it.

BTW it would be really helpful to bring the documentation pages more together / in sync. E.g. the quick guide mentions passing a regular array as nested collection using from, but the detailed collections page does not.

The quick start guide needs an update, anyone is welcome PR'ing one. I don't think we need to mention that you can pas an array nested, these things should just work. But you're always welcome to send in a PR updating the docs.