JSR-303 bean validation with Spring does not kick in - spring

Question

I've configured a JSR-303 custom validator following what's given in the docs (http://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/4.0.x/spring-framework-reference/html/validation.html), complete with LocalValidatorFactoryBean and Hibernate validator on the classpath. However, my validator just refuses to kick in. I've put up a dirt simple test project here (https://github.com/abhijitsarkar/java/tree/master/spring-jsr-303), along with a failing unit test. Should you decide to take a look, just clone it and run
gradlew clean test from the root directory.
I'm using Spring framework 4.0.2.RELEASE and Hibernate validator 5.0.3.Final.
Method under validation:
public Coffee serve(#ValidOrder(Coffee.Blend.class) final String blend) {
ValidOrder annotation:
#Documented
#Constraint(validatedBy = {OrderValidator.class})
#Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
#Target({ElementType.METHOD,
ElementType.FIELD,
ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE,
ElementType.CONSTRUCTOR,
ElementType.PARAMETER})
#NotNull
public #interface ValidOrder {
OrderValidator validator:
public class OrderValidator implements ConstraintValidator<ValidOrder, String> {
Spring config:
#Configuration
#ComponentScan(basePackages = "name.abhijitsarkar.coffeehouse")
#EnableAspectJAutoProxy
public abstract class AppConfig {
#Bean
public LocalValidatorFactoryBean validator() {
return new LocalValidatorFactoryBean();
}
}
Dependencies:
dependencies {
compile(
[group: 'javax.inject', name: 'javax.inject', version: injectApiVersion],
[group: 'javax.validation', name: 'validation-api', version: beanValidationApiVersion],
[group: 'javax.annotation', name: 'javax.annotation-api', version: annotationApiVersion],
[group: 'org.springframework', name: 'spring-beans', version: springVersion],
[group: 'org.springframework', name: 'spring-context', version: springVersion],
[group: 'org.springframework', name: 'spring-aop', version: springVersion],
[group: 'org.aspectj', name: 'aspectjrt', version: aspectjVersion]
)
runtime(
[group: 'org.hibernate', name: 'hibernate-validator', version: hibernateValidatorVersion],
[group: 'javax.el', name: 'javax.el-api', version: elVersion],
[group: 'org.glassfish.web', name: 'javax.el', version: glassfishElVersion],
[group: 'org.aspectj', name: 'aspectjweaver', version: aspectjVersion]
)

Answer 1

A MethodValidationPostProcessor needs to be configured in addition to the LocalValidatorFactoryBean.
The class to be validated must have a #Validated annotation on it else methods are NOT searched for inline constraint annotations.
#Configuration
#ComponentScan(basePackageClasses = {SpringPackageComponentScanMarker.class})
#EnableAspectJAutoProxy
public abstract class AppConfig {
#Bean
public MethodValidationPostProcessor methodValidationPostProcessor() {
final MethodValidationPostProcessor methodValidationPostProcessor = new MethodValidationPostProcessor();
methodValidationPostProcessor.setValidator(validator());
return methodValidationPostProcessor;
}
#Bean
public LocalValidatorFactoryBean validator() {
final LocalValidatorFactoryBean localValidatorFactoryBean = new LocalValidatorFactoryBean();
return localValidatorFactoryBean;
}
}
...
#Service
#Validated
public class SpringBarista extends Barista {
The part of the reference manual that talks about integration with JSR-303 conveniently omits these 2 crucial points without which BV does not kick in. This just caused me 6 hours of debugging and hair tearing where I did everything the doc said but BV would simply not kick in. I finally had to debug through the Spring source code to understand this. There got to be an easier way and I can't be the only one who had this problem. Created a JIRA SPR-11473 for them to update the doc.

Answer 2

For spring to validation to kick in the blend argument needs a #Valid annotation in front of it.
Your approach might not work since parameter contraints are not supported by the JSR303.
Constraint annotations can target any of the following ElementTypes:
FIELD for constrained attributes
METHOD for constrained getters
TYPE for constrained beans
ANNOTATION_TYPE for constraints composing other constraints
http://beanvalidation.org/1.0/spec/#constraintsdefinitionimplementation