Constraint REGEX `htmlPattern` cannot be a boolean.

[cavasinf]

Symfony version(s) affected

6.4.3

Description

Doc says that we can pass false to htmlPattern parameter, but in reality this is not the case.

Setting htmlPattern to false will disable client side validation.

https://symfony.com/doc/6.4/reference/constraints/Regex.html#htmlpattern

Class:

https://github.com/symfony/validator/blob/03b0c75d7d3df1ef9a0fd9fb8db1e86f83ffa2bb/Constraints/Regex.php#L39

How to reproduce

1. Add assert constraint to an entity:

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

// ...

#[Assert\Regex(
    pattern: '/^[a-z]+(-[a-z]+)*$/',
    htmlPattern: false,
)]
private ?string $slug = null;

2. Run phpstan
3. Error

------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
  Line   App/Entity/MyEntityphp                                                                                             
 ------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
  33     Parameter $htmlPattern of attribute class Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\Regex constructor expects string|null, false given.  
 ------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Possible Solution

Allow boolean or false type on htmlPattern parameter.

Additional Context

No response

[stof]

Looking at the code, you can also set it to an empty string for that

I'm not sure how we want to solve this inconsistency between the type that has been added in the code and the documentation.

Looking in the history, support for passing false to disable the HTML pattern was covered by tests when it was introduced in 6f9eda9 but this case was lost when refactoring the tests in bf006f5

[cavasinf]

you can also set it to an empty string for that

Ok for a "workaround", but I don't think it's a "normal way" to think if you want this behavior.
IMO the false option as recommended by the doc is a good configuration.

[alexandre-daubois]

The problem is Regex is not final and htmlPattern is public so its type cannot be changed without breaking backward compatibility. Sometimes BC breaks are accepted between minor versions but this is pretty rare. I think the best thing to do here is to address this to the documentation. I indeed agree with you that providing an empty string is not the best option and being able to pass false would be better, but I'm afraid this has to wait for Symfony 8.0 😄

[javiereguiluz]

The related docs have been fixed in symfony/symfony-docs#20089

I reopen the issue because I don't know if there are still some code changes that need to be made to fix this. Thanks.

[xabbuh]

Let’s close here. Since the constraint class isn’t final changing the property type isn’t easily possible and thus not worth the effort IMO.