Modifiers

Constant

If you want to model a field in schema that always dumps to the same value, you can use Constant. Also, it checks that the same value is present on load:

CircleType = Object({
    'type': Constant('circle'),
    'center': PointType,
    'radius': Float(),
})

RectangleType = Object({
    'type': Constant('rectangle'),
    'top_left': PointType,
    'bottom_right': PointType,
})

Optional

All types expect that the value will always be there, if it is not there or None, it will be an error. Sometimes you might want to make values optional. That’s exactly what this modifier type is for:

class User:
    def __init__(self, email, name=None):
        self.email = email
        self.name = name

UserType = Object({
    'email': Email(),
    'name': Optional(String()),  # it's ok not to have user name
}, constructor=User)

UserType.load({'email': 'john.doe@example.com'})
# => User(email='john.doe@example.com')

You can also specify values to use during loading/dumping if value is not present with load_default and dump_default:

UserType = Object({
    'email': String(),
    'role': Optional(
        String(validate=AnyOf(['admin', 'customer'])),
        load_default='customer',
    ),
})

LoadOnly and DumpOnly

If some data should not be accepted from user or not be exposed to user, you can use LoadOnly and DumpOnly to support that:

UserType = Object({
    'name': String(),
    'password': LoadOnly(String()),     # should not be dumped to user
    'created_at': DumpOnly(DateTime()), # should not be accepted from user
})

Corresponding load() or dump() methods will always return MISSING.