Multiple

The multiple constraint requires a node’s value—or its size—to be evenly divisible by a given number n. In mathematical terms, validation succeeds if:

value mod n == 0

This constraint applies not only to numeric values, but also to:

• the length of text values,

• the size of byte sequences,

• the number of elements in lists or matrices, and

• the number of child nodes in sections.

Negative values are supported and evaluated using the same rule.

Type Matrix

The following table summarizes how multiple is interpreted for each node type.

Node Type	S	Value Type	Details
Integer		Integer	Valid only if value mod n == 0.
Boolean
Float		Float	Valid only if value mod n == 0 within a platform-consistent floating-point tolerance.
Text		Integer	The text length (in Unicode code points) must be a multiple of n.
Date
Time
DateTime
Bytes		Integer	The number of bytes must be a multiple of n.
TimeDelta
RegEx
Value
ValueList		Integer	The number of list elements must be a multiple of n.
ValueMatrix		ValueList Integer	Both dimensions must be multiples of n. The first integer applies to rows, the second to columns.
Section		Integer	The number of child nodes (when using vr_any) must be a multiple of n.
SectionList		Integer	The number of list entries must be a multiple of n.
SectionWithTexts		Integer	The number of child nodes (when using vr_any) must be a multiple of n.
NotValidated

Rules for Multiple

1. Modulo Rule: Validation must test whether value mod n == 0.

   For example, multiple: 8 allows the values 0, ±8, ±16, and so on.

2. Negative Values: Negative values must be handled consistently. Validation succeeds if the absolute value is divisible by n.

   For example, -16 is valid for multiple: 8.

3. Floating-Point Precision: For floating-point values, validators must use a platform-consistent tolerance when testing for zero remainder.

   This ensures that values such as 0.9 validate correctly with multiple: 0.1 despite binary rounding differences.

4. Length-Based Evaluation: For text values, byte sequences, lists, matrices, and sections, the constraint applies to the length or size of the node—not to its contents.

Examples

Numeric Constraint

[app.buffer_size]
type: "integer"
multiple: 1024

[app]
buffer_size: 4096

[app]
buffer_size: 2000  # ERROR: Not a multiple of 1024

Length-Based Constraint

[app.key_block]
type: "bytes"
multiple: 16

[app]
key_block: <00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0a 0b 0c 0d 0e 0f>

[app]
key_block: <00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08>  # ERROR: Length not a multiple of 16