Reusing regular expressions in a json schema

[robert...@gmail.com]

Hi,

Was wondering if there was a way to reuse regular expressions across a JSON schema.  

For example if I have a schema which defined the following types:

 "name": {
   "type": "string",
   "pattern": "^([a-z|A-Z|0-9])+$"
 }

Which allows me to define names that like "Cat1", "Dog2", "Fred"

"namespace": {

  "type": "string",

  "pattern": "^([a-z|0-9])+(\\.([a-z|0-9])+)*$"
},

Which allow me to define namespaces that look like this: "com.animal", "com.person"

"fully-qualified-name": {

  "type": "string",

  "pattern": "^(([a-z|0-9])+\\.)*([a-z|A-Z|0-9])+$"

},

Which is really a combination of the two regexps from name and namespace and allows me to define fully qualified names that look like this: "com.animal.Cat1", "com.animal.Dog2" and "com.person.Fred"

"things": {

  "type": "object",

    "patternProperties": {"^([a-z|0-9])+(\\.([a-z|0-9])+)*$" : {}},

  "additionalProperties": false

},

Which copies the regexp for namespace and allows be to define objects that look like this:

{

  "com.animal": "Dog",

  "com.person": "Fred"

}

Is there a way I can structure the schema so I can reuse the regexps for name and namespace in fully-qualified-name and things schemas? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Rob

[robert...@gmail.com]

Anybody?

[Christopher J. White]

Hey Rob,

If you want to build a new regex from 2 or more other regex strings, I don't see a way to do that -- it seems beyond the scope of JSON schema at this point.

As for reusing existing regex patterns, you could conceivably use $ref for this:

{
   "patterns": {
        # Just a dictionary of interesting patterns
        "name": "^([a-z|A-Z|0-9])+$",
        "namespace": "^([a-z|0-9])+(\\.([a-z|0-9])+)*$"

    }
    "things": {
        "type": "object",
        "patternProperties": {

            { "$ref": "#/patterns/namespace" } : { "$ref": "#/patterns/name" }
        }
    }
}

...cj

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[robert...@gmail.com]

Oh cool, I didn't know you could do that.

I'll give it a shot tonight.

Thanks

Rob