How do I get my Spring Aspect to kick in for a #Valid annotation on a service method? - spring

Question

We're using Spring 3.2.11.RELEASE and Maven 3.0.3. I'm trying to set up validation of a parameter being passed into a service method. The method is below. Notice the #Valid annotation.
package org.mainco.subco.mypck.service;
#Service
#RemoteProxy
#Transactional
public class MypckServiceImpl implements MypckService {
#RemoteMethod
#Override
public String myMethod(#Valid final MyObjectDto request) {
// ...
}
}
Here is the aspect I have set up to help validate the object:
#Aspect
#Component
public class MyObjectValidatingAspect extends AbstractDWRAspectValidator<MyObjectDto>
{
#Before("execution(* org.mainco.subco.mypck.service.MypckService.myMethod(..))")
public void validateBefore(JoinPoint jp)
{
errors = new ArrayList<String>();
final MyObjectDto request = validate(jp);
validateMyObject(request);
throwErrors();
} // validateBefore
This is in included in my application context file:
<global-method-security pre-post-annotations="enabled">
</global-method-security>
<aop:aspectj-autoproxy/>
And this is what I've included in the Maven pom.xml file:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
<artifactId>aspectjweaver</artifactId>
<version>1.8.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
<artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
<version>1.8.2</version>
</dependency>
Unfortunately when the method is invoked, the aspectj's validateBefore is never called. What else do I need to do so that this gets invoked?

Answer 1

Since Spring 3.1 there is the MethodValidationInterceptor which basically does what you want to achieve yourself. To have this interceptor applied the only thing you need to do is to register a MethodValidationPostProcessor in your application context.
By default it will check for the #Validated annotation from Spring but you can instruct it to scan for the #Valid annotation.
<bean class="org.springframework.validation.beanvalidation.MethodValidationPostProcessor">
<property name="validatedAnnotationType" value="javax.validation.Valid" />
<property name="validator" ref="refToYOurLocalValidatorFactoryBean" />
</bean>
If you don't specify a validator the default JSR-303 validator mechanism will be used (or the more hibernate specific one if that is available). But I can imagine you want to reuse the already configured instance.