Grails default nullable constraints - validation

Question

In my Grails app I have the following command object
#Validateable
class CalendarEventCommand {
#BindingFormat('FestivalType')
Collection<FestivalType> types
Date start
Date end
MapFocalPoint location
boolean freeOnly = false
}
which is used as the argument to a controller action
def getCalendarEvents(CalendarEventCommand calendarEventCommand) {
if (calendarEventCommand.validate()) {
log.error "Command errors $calendarEventCommand.errors"
} else {
log.warn "Everything is fine"
}
}
In Config.groovy I've specified the following as the default constraints
grails.gorm.default.constraints = {
// apply a max size of 191 chars to String columns to support utf8mb4
// http://mathiasbynens.be/notes/mysql-utf8mb4
'*'(maxSize: 191)
// this shared constraint provides a way to override the default above for long text properties
unlimitedSize(maxSize: Integer.MAX_VALUE)
}
If an instance is created with a null value for start and end validation passes, but I wouldn't expect it to because AFAIK a default constraint of nullable: false should be applied to all properties. I've tried adding this explicitly, by changing the first default constraint to
'*'(maxSize: 191, nullable: false)
But validate() still returns true when start and/or end are null. If I add these constraints to CalendarEventCommand
static constraints = {
start nullable: false
end nullable: false
}
then validate() returns false, but AFAIK it shouldn't be necessary for me to add these constraints.

Answer 1

I think this is an expected behavior. There are couple of JIRA defects regarding this functionality out of which GRAILS-7431 and GRAILS-8583 seems more focused towards the behavior.
I was going through DefaultConstraintEvaluator.java which takes care of global constraints only for domain classes. I think we have to end up using the way mentioned later.
static constraints = {
start nullable: false
end nullable: false
}