Be warned: here comes a newbie. :-)

The property/column element used in the mapping file might contain the length attribute, say like this:



Is it ever used to constraint the length of that field by hibernate, say, for validation purposes before it gets persisted? If not, how do I go about having hibernate validates the length of those fields?

Thanks.

No worries man.



The length attribute is discussed in the online Hibernate manual: http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/reference/en/html/toolsetguide.html#toolsetguide-s1-2

It is used to define column widths (of say a VARCHAR column) in your database if you use Hibernate's schema generation tool to create your database.

As far as I know, it is not used for validating the length of data entered by a user into say a String object.



I don't know of any Hibernate-provided mechanism for data validation. You'll have to do it yourself. One library that might be useful to you is Apache Commons Validator. I've never used it but it looks like it has some useful features.

If you found this advice helpful, can you please give me a credit? Thanks.

mygear, did you try Apache Commons Validator yet?