Validation for complex object

rolltide · **Joined:** Wed May 11, 2011 7:40 pm **Posts:** 4

Newbie question around hibernate validator. I have 2 classes, which have reference to another child class and depending on parent class validation on child class should change. Looking at documentation it seem like I should use SequenceProvider so I create sequence provider for each parent class and than groups for including appropriate validations on child class but it doesn't seem to work.

So here are my questions -
1) Is this correct approach? or should I use something else
2) What am I missing if this is right approach

UserCreate Class -

Code:

@GroupSequenceProvider(CreateUserGroupSequenceProvider.class)
public class CreateUserRequest {
    @Valid
    @NotNull
    protected IdentityRequest identity;

    @Valid
    protected RegistrationProfileRequest registrationProfile;

    @Valid
    protected ProfileRequest profile;
}

UserUpdate Class -

Code:

@GroupSequenceProvider(UpdateUserGroupSequenceProvider.class)
public class UpdateUserRequest {

    @Valid
    protected IdentityRequest identity;

    @Valid
    protected RegistrationProfileRequest registrationProfile;

    @Valid
    protected ProfileRequest profile;
}

And here is the child class ex: IdentityRequest -

Code:

public class IdentityRequest {

    @NotNull(groups = CreateIdentityValidation.class, message = "Invalid email")
    @Email(regexp = "(.+@[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+\\.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+)", groups = {CreateIdentityValidation.class, EmailValidation.class}, message = "Invalid email")
    @SafeHtml(whitelistType = NONE, groups = {CreateIdentityValidation.class, EmailValidation.class}, message = "Invalid email")
    private String email;

    @NotNull(groups = {CreateIdentityValidation.class, PasswordValidation.class}, message = "Invalid password")
    @Size(min = 8, max = 255, groups = {CreateIdentityValidation.class, PasswordValidation.class}, message = "Invalid password")
    private String password;
}

So I have created 2 sequence provider one for each Create and Update request. And than in IdentityRequest for each validation I have assigned groups.

For ex: When Parent = CreateRequest than email and password both are required whereas when UpdateRequest its optional.

CreateUserGroupSequenceProvider

Code:

public class CreateUserGroupSequenceProvider implements DefaultGroupSequenceProvider<CreateUserRequest> {

    @Override
    public List<Class<?>> getValidationGroups(CreateUserRequest createUserRequest) {
        List<Class<?>> defaultGroupSequence = new ArrayList();
        defaultGroupSequence.add(createUserRequest.class);

        if (createUserRequest != null) {
            addIdentityValidationGroups(defaultGroupSequence, createUserRequest.getIdentity());

            addRegistrationProfileValidationGroups(defaultGroupSequence, createUserRequest.getRegistrationProfile());

            addProfileValidationGroups(defaultGroupSequence, createUserRequest.getProfile());
        }

        return defaultGroupSequence;
    }

    @Override
    protected void addIdentityValidationGroups(List<Class<?>> defaultGroupSequence, IdentityRequest identityRequest) {
        //validation group for username/password
        defaultGroupSequence.add(CreateIdentityValidation.class);
    }
}

UpdateUserGroupSequenceProvider

Code:

public class UpdateUserGroupSequenceProvider implements DefaultGroupSequenceProvider<UpdateUserRequest> {

    @Override
    public List<Class<?>> getValidationGroups(UpdateUserRequest updateUserRequest) {
        List<Class<?>> defaultGroupSequence = new ArrayList();
        defaultGroupSequence.add(UpdateUserRequest.class);

        if (updateUserRequest != null) {
            addIdentityValidationGroups(defaultGroupSequence, updateUserRequest.getIdentity());

            addRegistrationProfileValidationGroups(defaultGroupSequence, updateUserRequest.getRegistrationProfile());

            addProfileValidationGroups(defaultGroupSequence, updateUserRequest.getProfile());
        }

        return defaultGroupSequence;
    }
    
    @Override
    protected void addIdentityValidationGroups(List<Class<?>> defaultGroupSequence, IdentityRequest identityRequest) {
        if (identityRequest != null) {
            //Add password validation
            if (identityRequest.getPassword() != null) {
                defaultGroupSequence.add(IdentityValidation.PasswordValidation.class);
            }
            //Add email validation
            if (identityRequest.getEmail() != null) {
                defaultGroupSequence.add(IdentityValidation.EmailValidation.class);
            }
        }
    }
}

rolltide · **Joined:** Wed May 11, 2011 7:40 pm **Posts:** 4

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Even after debugging a lot I am unclear on how to proceed forward, it seems to skip email/password validation for UpdateRequest and narrowed it down to below Class and snippet of code -

Hibernate Validator Version = 5.2.2.Final

ValidatorImpl.java: Line 1504

Code:

if ( !metaConstraint.getGroupList().contains( valueContext.getCurrentGroup() ) ) {
         return false;
      }

metaConstraint.getGroupList() = FirstNameValidation
valueContext.getCurrentGroup() = Default

As per SequenceProvider documentation it seems like all the validations are added to "Default" group. I am assuming that I am not doing this right way.

If I write unit test which invoke validator with groupName = FirstNameValidation.class than those validations work but I am using spring-boot and I hope just adding @Valid on this object will trigger those validation.

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

Hi,

You could use group conversion (see http://beanvalidation.org/1.1/spec/#con ... conversion) for this. The idea would be to tanslate the default group into a specific group for insert or update for the two different references to IdentityRequest. E.g.:

Code:

public class CreateUserRequest {
    @Valid
    @NotNull
    @ConvertGroup(from=Default.class, to=CreateConstraints.class)
    protected IdentityRequest identity;
}

Hth,

--Gunnar