Add a documentation page for validation

docs/guide/index.rst

@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ User Guide
    defining-documents
    document-instances
    querying
+   validation
    gridfs
    signals
    text-indexes

docs/guide/querying.rst

@@ -566,7 +566,8 @@ cannot use the `$` syntax in keyword arguments it has been mapped to `S`::
     ['database', 'mongodb']
 
 From MongoDB version 2.6, push operator supports $position value which allows
-to push values with index.
+to push values with index::
+
     >>> post = BlogPost(title="Test", tags=["mongo"])
     >>> post.save()
     >>> post.update(push__tags__0=["database", "code"])

docs/guide/validation.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+====================
+Document Validation
+====================
+
+By design, mongoengine strictly validates the documents right before they are inserted in MongoDB
+and make sure they are consistent with the fields defined in your models.
+
+Mongoengine will not validate a document when an object is loaded from the DB into an instance
+of your model but this operation will fail under some circumstances (e.g: if there is a field in
+the document fetched from the database that is not defined in your model)
+
+
+Builtin validation
+=================
+
+Mongoengine provides different fields that encapsulate the corresponding validation
+out of the box. Validation runs when calling `.validate()` or `.save()`
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    from mongoengine import Document, EmailField
+
+    class User(Document):
+        email = EmailField()
+        age = IntField(min_value=0, max_value=99)
+
+    user = User(email='invalid@', age=24)
+    user.validate()     # raises ValidationError (Invalid email address: ['email'])
+    user.save()         # raises ValidationError (Invalid email address: ['email'])
+
+    user2 = User(email='john.doe@garbage.com', age=1000)
+    user2.save()        # raises ValidationError (Integer value is too large: ['age'])
+
+Custom validation
+=================
+
+The following feature can be used to customize the validation:
+
+* Field `validation` parameter
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    def not_john_doe(name):
+        if name == 'John Doe':
+            raise ValidationError("John Doe is not a valid name")
+
+    class Person(Document):
+        full_name = StringField(validation=not_john_doe)
+
+    Person(full_name='Billy Doe').save()
+    Person(full_name='John Doe').save()  # raises ValidationError (John Doe is not a valid name)
+
+
+* Document `clean` method
+
+Although not its primary use case, `clean` may be use to do validation that involves multiple fields.
+Note that `clean` runs before the validation when you save a Document.
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    class Person(Document):
+        first_name = StringField()
+        last_name = StringField()
+
+        def clean(self):
+            if self.first_name == 'John' and self.last_name == 'Doe':
+                raise ValidationError('John Doe is not a valid name')
+
+    Person(first_name='Billy', last_name='Doe').save()
+    Person(first_name='John', last_name='Doe').save()      # raises ValidationError (John Doe is not a valid name)
+
+
+
+* Adding custom Field classes
+
+We recommend as much as possible to use the standard field but it is also possible
+to subclass a Field and encapsulate some validation by overriding the `validate` method
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    class AgeField(IntField):
+
+        def validate(self, value):
+            super(AgeField, self).validate(value)     # let IntField.validate run first
+            if value == 60:
+                self.error('60 is not allowed')
+
+    class Person(Document):
+        age = AgeField(min_value=0, max_value=99)
+
+    Person(age=20).save()   # passes
+    Person(age=1000).save() # raises ValidationError (Integer value is too large: ['age'])
+    Person(age=60).save()   # raises ValidationError (Person:None) (60 is not allowed: ['age'])
+
+
+.. note::
+
+   When overriding `validate`, use `self.error("your-custom-error")` instead of raising ValidationError explicitly,
+   it will provide a better context with the error message
+
+Disabling validation
+====================
+
+We do not recommend to do this but if for some reason you need to disable the validation of a document
+when you call `.save()`, you can use `.save(validate=False)`.
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    class Person(Document):
+        age = IntField()
+
+    Person(age='garbage').save()    # raises ValidationError (garbage could not be converted to int: ['age'])
+
+    Person(age='garbage').save(validate=False)
+    person = Person.objects.first()
+    assert person.age == 'garbage'