RE: [Springframework-developer] Spring MVC and validation

[Oliver H. <Ol...@ou...>]

=20

> Basically we could do something like this:
>=20
>=20
> public @interface Validate {
>      String constraint();
>      String code();
>      String message();
>      String[] arguments();
> }

I personally think it would be nicer to implement the annotation in a
way that is consistent with the rule definitions used by
ValangValidatorFactoryBean:

public @interface Validate {
      String valang();
}

public class MyClass {

     @Validate("? not blank : 'First name should not be blank' :
'firstName_blank'")
     public String getFirstName() { return this.firstName; }

Also how would you deal with validating nested objects? For instance,
when editing contact details, our website will present the user with a
list of states and also with the option of entering in an alternative
state not in the list using a text field. Usually we bind directly onto
our domain object but because we have introduced an additional field I
create a form object that provides an accessor for the domain object and
for the additional field and then bind what I can directly to the domain
object and the additional fields onto the form object:

class ContactForm {
	Contact contact;
	String otherState;

	// where possible bind directly to this domain object
	getContact() { return contact;}=20

	@Validate("? is not blank && contact.state is not blank :
'Please select or enter a state but not both')
	String getOtherState() { return otherState; }
	void setOtherState(String otherState) {this.otherState =3D
otherState; }=09
}

How would you tell the annotation driven validator that it must also
validate the Contact object? Would we need an additional annotation?

public @interface ValidateNested {
}

class ContactForm {
	Contact contact;
	String otherState;

	@ValidateNested
	getContact() { return contact;}=20
...


Ollie