JSR303 - apply all validation groups defined sequentially

Question

I have a bean for which I want to do a conditional check. For this purpose, I defined DefaultGroupSequenceProvider<MyObject> , which returns a list of groups to check.

Now, when checking an object that violates restrictions in more than one group in the sequence, only the first group with failures returns the result. I would like to receive an error in all violations, and not just in the first group with errors.

I think that this does not need a sample code, but if I am mistaken, I will be happy to provide it.

I followed this http://kh-yiu.blogspot.com/2014/04/conditional-bean-validation-using.html when creating the sequence. We use Spring, if that matters.

Just a note, this works, as it is not possible for an invalid bean to be declared valid. But if the user has some input that violates 3 restrictions, and I return 2 failures, the user will receive another failure in the last field, as soon as the first ones are fixed. Not quite clear user.

Example:

Bean

 @GroupSequenceProvider(BeanSequenceProvider.class) public class MyBean { @NotEmpty private String name; @NotNull private MyType type; @NotEmpty(groups = Special.class) private String lastName; // Getters and setters } 

Type of listing

 public enum MyType { FIRST, SECOND } 

Provider

 public class BeanSequenceProvider implements DefaultGroupSequenceProvider<MyBean> { @Override public List<Class<?>> getValidationGroups(final MyBean object) { final List<Class<?>> classes = new ArrayList<>(); classes.add(MyBean.class); if (object != null && object.getType() == MyType.SECOND) { classes.add(Special.class); } return classes; } 

Group Annotations

 public interface Special { } 

Testing class

 public class MyBeanTest { private static Validator validator; private MyBean objectUnderTest; @BeforeClass public static void setUpOnce() throws Exception { final ValidatorFactory validatorFactory = Validation.buildDefaultValidatorFactory(); validator = validatorFactory.getValidator(); } @Before public void setUp() throws Exception { objectUnderTest = new MyBean(); objectUnderTest.setName("Simen"); objectUnderTest.setType(MyType.FIRST); objectUnderTest.setLastName("Woop"); } @Test public void testValid() throws Exception { assertThat(validator.validate(objectUnderTest), is(empty())); } @Test public void testMissingName() throws Exception { objectUnderTest.setName(null); assertThat(validator.validate(objectUnderTest), hasSize(1)); } @Test public void testMissingLastName() throws Exception { objectUnderTest.setLastName(null); assertThat(validator.validate(objectUnderTest), is(empty())); objectUnderTest.setType(MyType.SECOND); assertThat(validator.validate(objectUnderTest), hasSize(1)); objectUnderTest.setName(null); assertThat(validator.validate(objectUnderTest), hasSize(2)); } 

This last statement fails because there is one violation, not 2. Because the restriction of the restriction in the default group, the Special group is not violated.

Answer 1

Ok, now I understand your question. The answer is that the validation stops if there are one or more violations in this group. To quote the specification:

Group processing is defined in Section 4.6, “Verification Procedure”; if one of the groups processed in the sequence generates one or more violations of restrictions, the groups following in the sequence should not be processed. This ensures that the set of constraints is evaluated only if another set of constraints is acceptable.

See http://beanvalidation.org/1.1/spec/#constraintdeclarationvalidationprocess-groupsequence-groupsequence

In your case, there is a violation in the Default group, which means that the Special group is never checked.