Haven’t given exdantic (previously a fork of elixact) enough attention. It’s been on the shelf for weeks, awaiting integration.
Thanks for looking at this. You should be able to just disable strict mode.
It might be good for me to deprecate strict mode entirely from exdantic, as it’s not clear yet if it’s needed. Maybe? IDK.
$ elixir strictModeDeprecation/strict_vs_nonstrict_analysis.exs
=== EXDANTIC STRICT vs NON-STRICT BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS ===
STRICT - Valid atom keys:
Input: %{name: "Alice", email: "alice@example.com", age: 30}
✅ SUCCESS: %StrictSchema{age: 30, email: "alice@example.com", name: "Alice"}
NON-STRICT - Valid atom keys:
Input: %{name: "Alice", email: "alice@example.com", age: 30}
✅ SUCCESS: %NonStrictSchema{age: 30, email: "alice@example.com", name: "Alice"}
---
STRICT - Valid string keys:
Input: %{"age" => 25, "email" => "bob@example.com", "name" => "Bob"}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [], code: :additional_properties, message: "unknown fields: [\"age\", \"email\", \"name\"]"}]
NON-STRICT - Valid string keys:
Input: %{"age" => 25, "email" => "bob@example.com", "name" => "Bob"}
✅ SUCCESS: %NonStrictSchema{age: 25, email: "bob@example.com", name: "Bob"}
---
STRICT - Mixed keys:
Input: %{"age" => 35, "email" => "charlie@example.com", "name" => "Charlie"}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [], code: :additional_properties, message: "unknown fields: [\"age\", \"email\", \"name\"]"}]
NON-STRICT - Mixed keys:
Input: %{"age" => 35, "email" => "charlie@example.com", "name" => "Charlie"}
✅ SUCCESS: %NonStrictSchema{age: 35, email: "charlie@example.com", name: "Charlie"}
---
STRICT - Extra fields (atom keys):
Input: %{active: true, name: "David", email: "david@example.com", age: 40, role: "admin"}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [], code: :additional_properties, message: "unknown fields: [:active, :role]"}]
NON-STRICT - Extra fields (atom keys):
Input: %{active: true, name: "David", email: "david@example.com", age: 40, role: "admin"}
✅ SUCCESS: %NonStrictSchema{age: 40, email: "david@example.com", name: "David"}
---
STRICT - Extra fields (string keys):
Input: %{"age" => 28, "created_at" => "2024-01-01", "email" => "eve@example.com", "name" => "Eve", "role" => "user"}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [], code: :additional_properties, message: "unknown fields: [\"age\", \"created_at\", \"email\", \"name\", \"role\"]"}]
NON-STRICT - Extra fields (string keys):
Input: %{"age" => 28, "created_at" => "2024-01-01", "email" => "eve@example.com", "name" => "Eve", "role" => "user"}
✅ SUCCESS: %NonStrictSchema{age: 28, email: "eve@example.com", name: "Eve"}
---
STRICT - Missing required field:
Input: %{name: "Frank"}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [:email], code: :required, message: "field is required"}]
NON-STRICT - Missing required field:
Input: %{name: "Frank"}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [:email], code: :required, message: "field is required"}]
---
STRICT - Invalid email:
Input: %{name: "Grace", email: "invalid-email", age: 32}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [:email], code: :format, message: "failed format constraint"}]
NON-STRICT - Invalid email:
Input: %{name: "Grace", email: "invalid-email", age: 32}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [:email], code: :format, message: "failed format constraint"}]
---
STRICT - Nested extra data:
Input: %{"age" => 45, "email" => "henry@example.com", "metadata" => %{"source" => "api", "version" => "v2"}, "name" => "Henry", "profile" => %{"bio" => "Software engineer", "skills" => ["elixir", "rust"]}}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [], code: :additional_properties, message: "unknown fields: [\"age\", \"email\", \"metadata\", \"name\", \"profile\"]"}]
NON-STRICT - Nested extra data:
Input: %{"age" => 45, "email" => "henry@example.com", "metadata" => %{"source" => "api", "version" => "v2"}, "name" => "Henry", "profile" => %{"bio" => "Software engineer", "skills" => ["elixir", "rust"]}}
✅ SUCCESS: %NonStrictSchema{age: 45, email: "henry@example.com", name: "Henry"}
---
=== REAL-WORLD JSON API SCENARIO ===
Typical JSON from API:
{
"name": "API User",
"email": "user@api.com",
"age": 29,
"id": "12345",
"created_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
"updated_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
"metadata": {
"source": "registration",
"ip_address": "192.168.1.1"
}
}
Parsed JSON: %{"age" => 29, "created_at" => "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z", "email" => "user@api.com", "id" => "12345", "metadata" => %{"ip_address" => "192.168.1.1", "source" => "registration"}, "name" => "API User", "updated_at" => "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z"}
STRICT - Real API JSON:
Input: %{"age" => 29, "created_at" => "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z", "email" => "user@api.com", "id" => "12345", "metadata" => %{"ip_address" => "192.168.1.1", "source" => "registration"}, "name" => "API User", "updated_at" => "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z"}
❌ ERROR: [%Exdantic.Error{path: [], code: :additional_properties, message: "unknown fields: [\"age\", \"created_at\", \"email\", \"id\", \"metadata\", \"name\", \"updated_at\"]"}]
NON-STRICT - Real API JSON:
Input: %{"age" => 29, "created_at" => "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z", "email" => "user@api.com", "id" => "12345", "metadata" => %{"ip_address" => "192.168.1.1", "source" => "registration"}, "name" => "API User", "updated_at" => "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z"}
✅ SUCCESS: %NonStrictSchema{age: 29, email: "user@api.com", name: "API User"}
=== PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS ===
Performance (1000 validations):
Strict mode (valid data): 1.59ms
Non-strict mode (valid data): 1.26ms
Strict mode (extra fields): 5.49ms
Non-strict mode (extra fields): 1.56ms
=== KEY INSIGHTS ===
1. Strict mode ONLY works with atom keys in practice
2. Non-strict mode handles both atom and string keys gracefully
3. Real-world JSON APIs always have extra fields
4. String keys are the norm for external data
5. Strict mode limits interoperability significantly
https://github.com/nshkrdotcom/exdantic/blob/main/strictModeDeprecation/strict_vs_nonstrict_analysis.exs
Features
Bug Fixes
Thanks for reading!
