[pansa2]

“Parse, don’t [just] validate”.

Say I have a string that’s supposed to represent an integer. To me, “Validate” means using a regex to ensure it contains only digits (raising an error if it doesn’t) but then continuing to work with it as a string. “Parse” means using “atoi” to obtain an integer value (but what if the string’s malformed?) and then working with that.

I first thought this article was recommending doing the latter instead of the former, but the actual recommendation (and I believe best practice) is to do both.

[b3morales]

You seem to suggest that it's possible to parse without validating, which I'm not sure I follow. Surely validation is just one of the phases or steps of parsing?

[pansa2]

Functions like `atoi` parse strings into integers, but will happily accept “ 10blah” and return 10. In my experience it’s best to validate that the string is well-formed (e.g. contains only digits) before passing it to one of those functions.

[nsajko]

The point is that validation is (or should/can be) a byproduct of parsing. I.e., you shouldn't "do both", rather the validation should be encompassed by the parsing, as much as it makes sense.