Is there a way i can define data basic validation rules in the mapping file.

for example:

<property name="attribute" validation="regular expression"/>
if there was a way to do it this way, i could indicate the required number of characters, first character should be alphabet etc. and let my validate() method work from here.

i know i can write rules in the validate() method or anywhere in the persistent class. but it will be nice to know if there is a better way of doing it.

i would greatly appreciate your suggestions/advise at the earliest. i am stuck.

i am fairly new to hibernate (using 2.1).

thanks in advance.

No there is no such thing.

so how do you suggest i do data validation before save() ?

is there a hibernate or otherwise related best practice?

thanks very much.

this is for the developers of hibernate:

would you consider enhancing the property tag to add an attribute for data validation (something like shown below)???

<property name="attribute" validation="regular expression"/>

Hibernate supports CHECK constraints on two levels in the mapping metadata. You can read these constraints with the Configuration API and initialize your presentation tier validation framework (or do something similar).

appreciate the quick reply.

wondering if you are referring to the [color=red]Database level constraints???
could you please elaborate. i would greatly appreciate it.[/color]

if you want something custom that your code can take and use whereever it wants then look into using <meta> tags to "annotate" your hbm.xml's.

As Max has indicated, I have used meta tags to determine validation rules and the code looks these up through the Configuration class and applies the validation processing appropriately.

thanks for your suggestion. i could use the meta tags.

i attempted to create a meta tag like this:

<property name="firstName">
<meta attribute="field-description">validation rule</meta>
</property>

is this what you suggest???

i am not having luck to read the value of this attribute in my code (validation rule).


please let me know how i can extract the field-description attribute (or if there is any other attribute i can use for this), in the CODE...

i got only this far... cant find a method to read the meta attribute values...

SessionFactory sessionFactory = new Configuration().configure().buildSessionFactory();

ClassMetadata meta = sessionFactory.getClassMetadata(StakeHolder.class) ;

String[] metaP = meta.getPropertyNames() ;

get it via Configuration - it is not available on the sessionfactory.

look at Configuration API - look for getting a PersistentClass and on that you will have access to the properties and these will have getMetaAttribute

AWESOME!!!


Thanks a lot for your help! i greatly appreciate it.

i used:
new Configuration().configure()
.getClassMapping(StakeHolder.class)
.getProperty("firstName")
.getMetaAttribute("field-description")
.getValue()

cheers!!!