The Validation Rule That Was Itself Invalid
I lost a save cycle last week to a bug that I now think is one of the most under-discussed failure modes in configurable systems: a validation rule that was itself incompletely configured. Not invalid data. An invalid rule . The setup If you have ever built or maintained a form builder, you know the shape. Forms are not code, they are data, arranged in a hierarchy that looks roughly like this:…
One of the most overlooked failure modes in configurable systems is a validation rule that is not fully configured. This issue occurs when a validation rule is incomplete, leading to a bug that is only discovered during the save cycle. The problem arises from a validation rule that is set to "Required" but has no sub-type selected.
This creates ambiguity for the system, as it cannot determine whether the rule is incomplete or if the author simply hasn't finished configuring it. The only way to distinguish between the two is during the save process, which can lead to a frustrating authoring experience. To avoid this issue, one could either restrict the validation rules to require a strictness, default to a safe option, or validate at the point of edit.
By addressing these configuration problems during the design phase, developers can save time and prevent errors from occurring during the save cycle.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
