When validating a collection of beans, how can I indicate in the error message, which element of the collection is in error?

Question

I have a bean which references a collection of other beans. I use @Valid to include all referenced beans in the validation.

public class MasterBean {
    @Valid
    private Collection<DetailBean> details;
    ... 
}

public class DetailBean {
    private String id;

    @NotBlank(message = "{name_not_blank_message_key}")
    private String name;
    ...
}

This works fine so far, the user gets all validation error messages from all DetailBean instances. However, the error messages do not contain any indication about which of the instances they are related to. Ideally, the user should see something like "Name of something is missing", where something is a property (e.g. id) of the given instance. Unfortunately the stock MessageInterpolator allows placeholders for static annotation parameters only (like {min}) and does not support the substitution of bean properties.

I've read several related posts, maybe this one being the closest, but none of the suggestions seems to be feasible in my case (besides an own MessageInterpolator implementation - what I'm more than afraid of...).

Some more background: I'm working on a JSF 2 project with the extensive use of RichFaces tags. The bean to be validated is part of the backing bean of a JSF page, validation is triggered by a <rich:graphValidator> tag upon form submission. The back-end is Hibernate Validator.

Is this JSF 1.2 or JSF 2? – Luiggi Mendoza Jan 30 '13 at 12:44 — Luiggi Mendoza, Jan 30 '13 at 12:44
It's JSF 2. (Updated the question.) – sandorb Jan 30 '13 at 12:49 — sandorb, Jan 30 '13 at 12:49

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 31 '13 at 10:52

0

If you just want to interpolate the validated value and you are using Hibernate Validator 4.x you could use the ValueFormatterMessageInterpolator. It is also a custom MessageInterpolator, but you don't have to implement anything yourself.

Fully customizable rendering (including navigation of bean properties a la Expression Language) will come with Bean Validation 1.1 and Hibernate Validator 5. The features are implemented, but not available yet in a final release. See also BVAL-223 and HV-676.

answered Jan 31 '13 at 10:52

Hardy

18,659
3
49
65

Thank you for making me aware of the ValueFormatterMessageInterpolator, although I can't use it directly in my case. The properties I have to validate don't give a good reference to the bean itself for the users (e.g. a String which violates @NotBlank does not help much in the error message). – sandorb Jan 31 '13 at 15:14

When validating a collection of beans, how can I indicate in the error message, which element of the collection is in error?

1 Answers1