Nested Jsr 303 validation annotations

Question

I would like to use a class level annotation constraint. However I cannot get the inner constraints to validate automatically. I'd like to help with one part, to incorporate validation groups into this technique.

@ConstraintA({
  @ConstraintB(stuff),
  @ConstraintB(stuff, groups=SomeGroup.class)
})
public class Form{
}

I currentily trigger the constraints like so.

 if(constraint instanceof ConstraintB){
      new ConstraintBValidator().isValid(target, context);
 }

However this sucks obviously.I will eventually refactor to trigger the isValid methods through a call to the AnnotationInvocationHandler.invoke() method, but im a little way from that still.

My issue is that all ConstraintB instances are passed into my ConstraintA. I wish only the ones with the appropriate groups to be passed to ConstraintA. I doubt this ability exists, so how can i identify which groups need to be triggered and which dont?

I dont see in my debug, any objects which specify which groups should be triggered?

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I've found a pattern in the JSR 303 spec that allows this type of validation. Its a recursive pattern that wont execute the parent validation rule, only fulfill the nested validations. This is VERY handy. My nested validation rules are conditionally based on other properties values so it allows conditional validation with nested jsr303 annotations.

 @Documented
 @Constraint(validatedBy = ZipCodeValidator.class)
 @Target({ METHOD, FIELD, ANNOTATION_TYPE, CONSTRUCTOR, PARAMETER })
 @Retention(RUNTIME)
 public @interface ZipCode {
 String countryCode();
 String message() default "{com.acme.constraint.ZipCode.message}";
 Class<?>[] groups() default {};
 Class<? extends Payload>[] payload() default {};
 /**
 * Defines several @ZipCode annotations on the same element
 * @see (@link ZipCode}
 */ 
 @Target({ METHOD, FIELD, ANNOTATION_TYPE, CONSTRUCTOR, PARAMETER })
 @Retention(RUNTIME)
 @Documented
 @interface List {
 ZipCode[] value();
 }

my own validation is more like this:

 @RequiredIf ({
 @RequiredIf(ifField="field1", matches={"true","somethingElse"}, requiredField="anotherField", andDisplay="error.code.msg"),
 @RequiredIf(ifField="field2", matches={"true","somethingElse"}, requiredField="anotherField", andDisplay="error.code.msg")
  })