Hibernate Validation of Collections of Primitives

Hibernate Validation of Collections of Primitives

Neither JSR-303 nor Hibernate Validator has any ready-made constraint that can validate each elements of Collection.

One possible solution to address this issue is to create a custom @ValidCollection constraint and corresponding validator implementation ValidCollectionValidator.

To validate each element of collection we need an instance of Validator inside ValidCollectionValidator; and to get such instance we need custom implementation of ConstraintValidatorFactory.

See if you like following solution...

Simply,

• copy-paste all these java classes (and import relavent classes);
• add validation-api, hibenate-validator, slf4j-log4j12, and testng jars on classpath;
• run the test-case.

ValidCollection

    public @interface ValidCollection {

    Class<?> elementType();

    /* Specify constraints when collection element type is NOT constrained 
     * validator.getConstraintsForClass(elementType).isBeanConstrained(); */
    Class<?>[] constraints() default {};

    boolean allViolationMessages() default true;

    String message() default "{ValidCollection.message}";

    Class<?>[] groups() default {};

    Class<? extends Payload>[] payload() default {};

}

ValidCollectionValidator

    public class ValidCollectionValidator implements ConstraintValidator<ValidCollection, Collection>, ValidatorContextAwareConstraintValidator {

    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ValidCollectionValidator.class);

    private ValidatorContext validatorContext;

    private Class<?> elementType;
    private Class<?>[] constraints;
    private boolean allViolationMessages;

    @Override
    public void setValidatorContext(ValidatorContext validatorContext) {
        this.validatorContext = validatorContext;
    }

    @Override
    public void initialize(ValidCollection constraintAnnotation) {
        elementType = constraintAnnotation.elementType();
        constraints = constraintAnnotation.constraints();
        allViolationMessages = constraintAnnotation.allViolationMessages();
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isValid(Collection collection, ConstraintValidatorContext context) {
        boolean valid = true;

        if(collection == null) {
            //null collection cannot be validated
            return false;
        }

        Validator validator = validatorContext.getValidator();

        boolean beanConstrained = validator.getConstraintsForClass(elementType).isBeanConstrained();

        for(Object element : collection) {
            Set<ConstraintViolation<?>> violations = new HashSet<ConstraintViolation<?>> ();

            if(beanConstrained) {
                boolean hasValidCollectionConstraint = hasValidCollectionConstraint(elementType);
                if(hasValidCollectionConstraint) {
                    // elementType has @ValidCollection constraint
                    violations.addAll(validator.validate(element));
                } else {
                    violations.addAll(validator.validate(element));
                }
            } else {
                for(Class<?> constraint : constraints) {
                    String propertyName = constraint.getSimpleName();
                    propertyName = Introspector.decapitalize(propertyName);
                    violations.addAll(validator.validateValue(CollectionElementBean.class, propertyName, element));
                }
            }

            if(!violations.isEmpty()) {
                valid = false;
            }

            if(allViolationMessages) { //TODO improve
                for(ConstraintViolation<?> violation : violations) {
                    logger.debug(violation.getMessage());
                    ConstraintViolationBuilder violationBuilder = context.buildConstraintViolationWithTemplate(violation.getMessage());
                    violationBuilder.addConstraintViolation();
                }
            }

        }

        return valid;
    }

    private boolean hasValidCollectionConstraint(Class<?> beanType) {
        BeanDescriptor beanDescriptor = validatorContext.getValidator().getConstraintsForClass(beanType);
        boolean isBeanConstrained = beanDescriptor.isBeanConstrained();
        if(!isBeanConstrained) {
            return false;
        }
        Set<ConstraintDescriptor<?>> constraintDescriptors = beanDescriptor.getConstraintDescriptors(); 
        for(ConstraintDescriptor<?> constraintDescriptor : constraintDescriptors) {
            if(constraintDescriptor.getAnnotation().annotationType().getName().equals(ValidCollection.class.getName())) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        Set<PropertyDescriptor> propertyDescriptors = beanDescriptor.getConstrainedProperties();
        for(PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor : propertyDescriptors) {
            constraintDescriptors = propertyDescriptor.getConstraintDescriptors();
            for(ConstraintDescriptor<?> constraintDescriptor : constraintDescriptors) {
                if(constraintDescriptor.getAnnotation().annotationType().getName().equals(ValidCollection.class.getName())) {
                    return true;
                }
            }    
        }
        return false;
    }

}

ValidatorContextAwareConstraintValidator

public interface ValidatorContextAwareConstraintValidator {

    void setValidatorContext(ValidatorContext validatorContext);

}

CollectionElementBean

    public class CollectionElementBean {

    /* add more properties on-demand */
    private Object notNull;
    private String notBlank;
    private String email;

    protected CollectionElementBean() {
    }

    @NotNull
    public Object getNotNull() { return notNull; }
    public void setNotNull(Object notNull) { this.notNull = notNull; }

    @NotBlank
    public String getNotBlank() { return notBlank; }
    public void setNotBlank(String notBlank) { this.notBlank = notBlank; }

    @Email
    public String getEmail() { return email; }
    public void setEmail(String email) { this.email = email; }

}

ConstraintValidatorFactoryImpl

public class ConstraintValidatorFactoryImpl implements ConstraintValidatorFactory {

    private ValidatorContext validatorContext;

    public ConstraintValidatorFactoryImpl(ValidatorContext nativeValidator) {
        this.validatorContext = nativeValidator;
    }

    @Override
    public <T extends ConstraintValidator<?, ?>> T getInstance(Class<T> key) {
        T instance = null;

        try {
            instance = key.newInstance();
        } catch (Exception e) { 
            // could not instantiate class
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        if(ValidatorContextAwareConstraintValidator.class.isAssignableFrom(key)) {
            ValidatorContextAwareConstraintValidator validator = (ValidatorContextAwareConstraintValidator) instance;
            validator.setValidatorContext(validatorContext);
        }

        return instance;
    }

}

Employee

public class Employee {

    private String firstName;
    private String lastName;
    private List<String> emailAddresses;

    @NotNull
    public String getFirstName() { return firstName; }
    public void setFirstName(String firstName) { this.firstName = firstName; }

    public String getLastName() { return lastName; }
    public void setLastName(String lastName) { this.lastName = lastName; }

    @ValidCollection(elementType=String.class, constraints={Email.class})
    public List<String> getEmailAddresses() { return emailAddresses; }
    public void setEmailAddresses(List<String> emailAddresses) { this.emailAddresses = emailAddresses; }

}

Team

public class Team {

    private String name;
    private Set<Employee> members;

    public String getName() { return name; }
    public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; }

    @ValidCollection(elementType=Employee.class)
    public Set<Employee> getMembers() { return members; }
    public void setMembers(Set<Employee> members) { this.members = members; }

}

ShoppingCart

public class ShoppingCart {

    private List<String> items;

    @ValidCollection(elementType=String.class, constraints={NotBlank.class})
    public List<String> getItems() { return items; }
    public void setItems(List<String> items) { this.items = items; }

}

ValidCollectionTest

public class ValidCollectionTest {

    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ValidCollectionTest.class);

    private ValidatorFactory validatorFactory;

    @BeforeClass
    public void createValidatorFactory() {
        validatorFactory = Validation.buildDefaultValidatorFactory();
    }

    private Validator getValidator() {
        ValidatorContext validatorContext = validatorFactory.usingContext();
        validatorContext.constraintValidatorFactory(new ConstraintValidatorFactoryImpl(validatorContext));
        Validator validator = validatorContext.getValidator();
        return validator;
    }

    @Test
    public void beanConstrained() {
        Employee se = new Employee();
        se.setFirstName("Santiago");
        se.setLastName("Ennis");
        se.setEmailAddresses(new ArrayList<String> ());
        se.getEmailAddresses().add("segmail.com");
        Employee me = new Employee();
        me.setEmailAddresses(new ArrayList<String> ());
        me.getEmailAddresses().add("me@gmail.com");

        Team team = new Team();
        team.setMembers(new HashSet<Employee>());
        team.getMembers().add(se);
        team.getMembers().add(me);

        Validator validator = getValidator();

        Set<ConstraintViolation<Team>> violations = validator.validate(team);
        for(ConstraintViolation<Team> violation : violations) {
            logger.info(violation.getMessage());
        }
    }

    @Test
    public void beanNotConstrained() {
        ShoppingCart cart = new ShoppingCart();
        cart.setItems(new ArrayList<String> ());
        cart.getItems().add("JSR-303 Book");
        cart.getItems().add("");

        Validator validator = getValidator();

        Set<ConstraintViolation<ShoppingCart>> violations = validator.validate(cart, Default.class);
        for(ConstraintViolation<ShoppingCart> violation : violations) {
            logger.info(violation.getMessage());
        }
    }

}

Output

02:16:37,581  INFO main validation.ValidCollectionTest:66 - {ValidCollection.message}
02:16:38,303  INFO main validation.ValidCollectionTest:66 - may not be null
02:16:39,092  INFO main validation.ValidCollectionTest:66 - not a well-formed email address

02:17:46,460  INFO main validation.ValidCollectionTest:81 - may not be empty
02:17:47,064  INFO main validation.ValidCollectionTest:81 - {ValidCollection.message}

Note:- When bean has constraints do NOT specify the constraints attribute of @ValidCollection constraint. The constraints attribute is necessary when bean has no constraint.

How to use Java Bean Validators (JSR-303/JSR-349) on elements of an array/list/collection

There is no easy generic solution as of Bean Validation 1.0/1.1. You could implement a custom constraint like @NoNullElements:

@NoNullElements
private List<String> myStrings;

The constraint's validator would iterate over the list and check that no element is null. Another approach is to wrap your String into a more domain-specific type:

public class EmailAddress {

    @NotNull
    @Email
    private String value;

    //...
}

And apply cascaded validation to the list via @Valid:

@Valid
private List<EmailAddress> addresses;

Having such a domain-specific data type is often helpful anyways to convey a data element's meaning as it is passed through an application.

In the future a generic solution for the issue may be to use annotations on type parameters as supported by Java 8 but that's only an idea at this point:

private List<@NotNull String> myStrings;

Related Topics