Validation hierarchy

aronrodrigues · **Joined:** Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:35 am **Posts:** 6

Hello, I'm developing a system with javax.validation and the hibernate-jpa-2.0-api.
I have the following scenrio:

Code:

@Entity 
@Table(name="ath_login", uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames={"name"})})
public class Login  {

   public enum Status {OK, NEW, BLOCKED, CLOSED}
   
   @Size(min=7, max=255)
        @NotNull
        @Column(name="name", length=255)
   protected String name;
   
   @Size(min=6, max=50)
   @Column(name="password", length=32)
   protected String password;

        // getters and setters
}

public class WebLogin extends Login {



}

I want that the name field of WebLogin class is validated by
@Pattern(regexp = "^[\\w\\-]([\\.\\w])+[\\w]+@([\\w\\-]+\\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,4}$" , message="Bad Email")

How can I do it?

Gunnar · **Joined:** Sat Jan 24, 2009 12:46 pm **Posts:** 388

Hi,

you could put your constraints at the getters (e.g. getName()) of your properties instead of the fields. The constraints at the getters of one property in the hierarchy add up, so when annotating getName() in Login and WebLogin all these constraints will apply when validating an instance of WebLogin.

Annotating getters is preferable IMO anyways as the constraints are part of a type's public API that way, e.g. a user can see the constraints in the generated JavaDoc, which wouldn't be the case for constraints on private fields for instance.

You can find more information on constraint inheritence in the HV reference guide.

Hth, Gunnar

aronrodrigues · **Joined:** Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:35 am **Posts:** 6

Thank you. I'll test it.
I put the validation on the atributes, because of hibernate. (It don't let me put onetomany on the getters).

By the way, as you know a lot of validation, tell me something. When the validation occurs? In the setter?

kevinpollet · **Posted:** Tue Sep 13, 2011 3:21 pm

Hi,

I agree with Gunnar and as he says the getter approach is better IMO.

Btw I've seen that you want to validate an email. I don't know if you want to be independent of the underlying implementation of Bean Validation but Hibernate Validator provides an additional constraint for that (@Email).

Quote:

When the validation occurs? In the setter?

The validation is realized just before persisting, updating or removing the object in the data base. FYI, the following sentence comes from JPA 2 specification.

Quote:

This specification supports the use of bean validation for the automatic validation of entities upon the pre-persist, pre-update, and pre-remove lifecycle validation events.

Hope this help.

--Kevin