Problems setting up Spring form validation - spring

Question

I have some problems setting up the validation in Spring MVC (4.3.9) application.
Basically, there is a simple application, with the issue isolated to one "contact" form.
Here is part of the code of the bean underlying the form:
#Component
#Scope("request")
public class SendMail {
#Min(20)
private String userName;
#Size(min=10, max=11)
private String message;
private String userEmail;
public static class CustomValidator implements Validator {
#Override
public boolean supports(Class clazz) {
return SendMail.class.equals(clazz);
}
#Override
public void validate(Object targets, Errors errors) {
SendMail o = (SendMail) targets;
if (o.getUserName() == null || o.getUserName().length() < 1) {
errors.rejectValue("userName", "Empty.userName");
}
}
}
....
}
and here is the part of the relevant controller:
#RequestMapping(value = {"/contact"}, method = RequestMethod.POST)
public ModelAndView sendEmail(#Valid SendMail sendmail, BindingResult result) {
System.out.println("Result1: " + result.hasErrors());
DataBinder binder = new DataBinder(sendmail);
binder.setValidator(new SendMail.CustomValidator());
binder.validate();
result = binder.getBindingResult();
System.out.println("Result2: " + result.hasErrors());
I get the following result:
Result1: false
Result2: true
So, the 'general' (denoted by the #Valid annotation) validation doesnt seem to work, but a manually-invoked validation does.
I googled for some time and have come across suggestions that a validation bean needs to be defined in the spring config. Unfortunately, when I add the following to my Config.java:
....
#Bean(name = "validator")
public Validator getValidator() {
LocalValidatorFactoryBean validator = new LocalValidatorFactoryBean();
return validator;
}
The application crashes with the following exception:
....
root cause
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.el.ExpressionFactory
java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:381)
java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:335)
java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:763)
java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)
java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:467)
java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:73)
java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:368)
java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:362)
java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:361)
java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:335)
java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:411)
java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:348)
org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(Unknown Source)
org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(Unknown Source)
javax.el.ExpressionFactory.newInstance(Unknown Source)
javax.el.ExpressionFactory.newInstance(Unknown Source)
....
This supposedly indicates, there is no lib with EL implementation. And here is where I'm stuck. I have tried a number of dependency (using maven) with no avail. Currently the relevant part of my pom looks like this:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.glassfish</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.el</artifactId>
<version>3.0.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.validation</groupId>
<artifactId>validation-api</artifactId>
<version>1.1.0.Final</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
<version>5.4.1.Final</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-validator-annotation-processor</artifactId>
<version>5.4.1.Final</version>
</dependency>
I have tried various set-ups, with el-impl 2.2, etc. addin el.jar to Tomcat clasppath. But no luck at all =(
What is even more starange, if you look at the exception above, the call actually goes through "javax.el.ExpressionFactory.newInstance(Unknown Source)" before resulting in "java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.el.ExpressionFactory".
I'd be grateful for any hints on how to fix/debug the issue...

Answer 1

Add this dependency .
<dependency>
<groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
<artifactId>el-impl</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
</dependency>
Follow solution here .

Answer 2

I have found the solution to my issue. Strange as it seems, when I added el.jar supplied with Tomcat to the classpath in catalina.sh, the validation works. It might be a distro-related issue (i'm running it on Gentoo).