Spring MVC - Selective Formatting - spring

I have a custom tag that extends Spring's InputTag to display numbers in the format ",###.0". I've registered a custom PropertyEditor for the Double class to handle the formatting.
When a form is submitted and validation fails, all invalid values should be re-displayed as-is, without any formatting, so that the user can see the mistake he made. How do I inform the custom tag of the validation result so that it does not do any formatting?
I'm using Spring MVC 3.
Thanks.

Override the getPropertyEditor() method of AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag, and return null instead of PropertyEditor instance (so the ValueFormatter will not pass the object value to PropertyEditor for formatting purpose).
public class CustomInputTag extends InputTag {
#Override
protected PropertyEditor getPropertyEditor() throws JspException {
if(getBindStatus().getErrors().hasErrors()) {
return null;
}
return super.getPropertyEditor();
}
}

Related

How to validate request parameters on feign client

Is there a way to add validation to feign clients on the request parameters.
For example:
#FeignClient
public interface ZipCodeClient {
#GetMapping("/zipcodes/{zipCode}")
Optional<ZipCodeView> findByZipCode(#PathVariable("zipCode") String zipCode);
}
It would be nice to verify that zipcode is not empty and is of certain length etc, before sending the HTTP call to the server.
If your validations are simple, apply to only headers and query string parameters, you can use a RequestInterceptor for this, as it provides you the opportunity to review the RequestTemplate before it is sent to the Client.
public class ValidatingRequestInterceptor implements RequestInterceptor {
public void apply(RequestTemplate requestTemplate) {
// use the methods on the request template to check the query and values.
// throw an exception if the request is not valid.
}
}
If you need to validate the request body, you can use a custom Encoder
public class ValidatingEncoder implements Encoder {
public void encode(Object object, Type type, RequestTemplate template) {
// validate the object
// throw an exception if the request is not valid.
}
}
Lastly, if you want to validate individual parameters, you can provide a custom Expander for the parameter and validate it there. You can look at this answer for a complete explanation on how to create a custom expander that can work with Spring Cloud.
How to custom #FeignClient Expander to convert param?
For completeness, I've included an example for how to do this with vanilla Feign.
public class ZipCodeExpander implements Expander {
public String expand(Object value) {
// validate the object
// throw an exception if the request is not valid.
}
}
public interface ZipCodeClient {
#RequestLine("GET /zipcodes/{zipCode}")
Optional<ZipCodeView> findByZipCode(#Param(expander = ZipCodeExpander.class) ("zipCode") String zipCode);
}
As pointed out in this comment, a solution using the Bean Validation API would be nice. And indeed, I found in a Spring Boot project that merely placing #org.springframework.validation.annotation.Validated on the interface is sufficient for enabling Bean Validation.
So for example:
#FeignClient
#Validated
public interface ZipCodeClient {
#GetMapping("/zipcodes/{zipCode}")
Optional<ZipCodeView> findByZipCode(#PathVariable("zipCode") #NotEmpty String zipCode);
}
triggering a ConstraintViolationException in the case of violations.
Any standard Bean Validation feature should work here.
UDPATE Note that there seems to be a potential issue with this solution that might require setting a Hibernate Validator configuration property like this: hibernate.validator.allow_parallel_method_parameter_constraint=true

Spring MVC 3. How to modify the form after binding but before validation

I am developing an application using Spring MVC 3 annotated style controllers. In some ocassions I need to add/modify some field values depending on session variables or some other condition. To complicate things, the field may have a fixed value if some condition is matched, and read user input if not. The question is: There is a way to modify the form after binding but before validation using spring mvc 3? It was quite simple with SimpleFormController (onBind method), but I can't find a way in spring mvc 3.
An example:
a) I initialize the binder for my form. Add a validator, set the list of allowed fields, and add a list of generic property editors
#InitBinder(value = COMMAND_NAME)
#Override
public void initBinder(final WebDataBinder binder, final HttpServletRequest httpServletRequest) {
binder.setValidator(reenvioAsientoValidator);
binder.setAllowedFields(ReenvioAsientoForm.getListaCamposPermitidos());
.... Add some custom property editors for booleans, integers ....
}
b) Create model object
#ModelAttribute(value = COMMAND_NAME)
public ReenvioAsientoForm rellenaModelo(final HttpServletRequest httpServletRequest) {
final ReenvioAsientoForm form = new ReenvioAsientoForm();
... Add some field values, which cannot be modified by user ...
return form;
}
c) Binding happens: And it can modify any field that is in the allowedFields list. Even those I setted in phase b)
d) THIS IS WHAT I CAN'T DO. I need to set/modify some fields of the form. Can't be done in the create model phase, because those fields are in the allowedFields list (Depending on different conditions, they can be readonly or accept user input)
e) Validation happens
f) Controller POST method is invoked
#RequestMapping(value = URI_REENVIO_ASIENTO, method = RequestMethod.POST)
public ModelAndView submit(#Valid #ModelAttribute(COMMAND_NAME) final ReenvioAsientoForm form, final BindingResult result, HttpServletRequest request) {
.....
}
Somethings I've tried:
Modify inside validator, before validation: That is a possible solution, but I find it nasty, because I am using the validator for something it is not intended. Plus it only works if the form is validated.
Using a CustomPropertyEditor. This way I can check the condition and set the value during binding. The problem is that the binder is fired only if a the property is present in the request. If there were someway to fire it always, it would be a nice solution
The easiest workaround is to avoid using #Valid to trigger validation.
#Autowired
Validator validator;
#RequestMapping(value = URI_REENVIO_ASIENTO, method = RequestMethod.POST)
public ModelAndView submit(#ModelAttribute(COMMAND_NAME) final ReenvioAsientoForm form, final BindingResult result, HttpServletRequest request) {
// here comes the custom logic
// that will be executed after binding and before validation
// trigger validation
validator.validate(form, result);
// handle validation result and return view name
...
}
See related issue in Spring JIRA and the explanation that such hook / annotation won't be implemented - #MVC should provide an "onBind" hook prior to automatic validation.

Spring validation keeps validating the wrong argument

I have a controller with a web method that looks like this:
public Response registerDevice(
#Valid final Device device,
#RequestBody final Tokens tokens
) {...}
And a validator that looks like this:
public class DeviceValidator implements Validator {
#Override
public boolean supports(Class<?> clazz) {
return Device.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz);
}
#Override
public void validate(Object target, Errors errors) {
// Do magic
}
}
}
I'm trying to get Spring to validate the Device argument which is being generated by an interceptor. But every time I try, it validates the tokens argument instead.
I've tried using #InitBinder to specify the validator, #Validated instead of #Validand registering MethodValidationPostProcessor classes. So far with no luck.
Either the validator is not called at all, or tokens argument is validated when I was the Device argument validated.
I'm using Spring 4.1.6 and Hibernate validator 5.1.3.
Can anyone offer any clues as to what I'm doing wrong? I've searched the web all afternoon trying to sort this out. Can't believe that the validation area of spring is still as messed up as it was 5 years ago :-(
Ok. Have now solved it after two days of messing about with all sorts of variations. If there is one thing Spring's validation lets you do - it's come up with an incredible array of things that don't work! But back to my solution.
Basically what I needed was a way to manually create request mapping arguments, validate them and then ensure that no matter whether it was a success or failure, that the caller always received a custom JSON response. Doing this proved a lot harder than I thought because despite the number of blog posts and stackoverflow answers, I never found a complete solution. So I've endeavoured to outline each piece of the puzzle needed to achieve what I wanted.
Note: in the following code samples, I've generalised the names of things to help clarify whats custom and whats not.
Configuration
Although several blog posts I read talked about various classes such as the MethodValidationPostProcessor, in the end I found I didn't need anything setup beyond the #EnableWebMvc annotation. The default resolvers etc proved to be what I needed.
Request Mapping
My final request mapping signatures looked like this:
#RequestMapping(...)
public MyMsgObject handleRequest (
#Valid final MyHeaderObj myHeaderObj,
#RequestBody final MyRequestPayload myRequestPayload
) {...}
You will note here that unlike just about every blog post and sample I found, I have two objects being passed to the method. The first is an object that I want to dynamically generate from the headers. The second is a deserialised object from the JSON payload. Other objects could just as easily be included such as path arguments etc. Try something like this without the code below and you will get a wide variety of weird and wonderful errors.
The tricky part that caused me all the pain was that I wanted to validate the myHeaderObj instance, and NOT validate the myRequestPayload instance. This caused quite a headache to resolve.
Also note the MyMsgObject result object. Here I want to return an object that will be serialised out to JSON. Including when exceptions occur as this class contains error fields that need to be populated in addition to the HttpStatus code.
Controller Advice
Next I created an ControllerAdvice class which contained the binding for validation and a general error trap.
#ControllerAdvice
public class MyControllerAdvice {
#Autowired
private MyCustomValidator customValidator;
#InitBinder
protected void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
if (binder.getTarget() == null) {
// Plain arguments have a null target.
return;
}
if (MyHeaderObj.class.isAssignableFrom(binder.getTarget().getClass())) {
binder.addValidators(this.customValidator);
}
}
#ExceptionHandler(Exception.class)
#ResponseStatus(value=HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR)
#ResponseBody
public MyMsgObject handleException(Exception e) {
MyMsgObject myMsgObject = new MyMsgObject();
myMsgObject.setStatus(MyStatus.Failure);
myMsgObject.setMessage(e.getMessage());
return myMsgObject;
}
}
Two things going on here. The first is registering the validator. Note that we have to check the type of the argument. This is because #InitBinder is called for each argument to the #RequestMapping and we only want the validator on the MyHeaderObj argument. If we don't do this, exceptions will be thrown when Spring attempts to apply the validator to arguments it's not valid for.
The second thing is the exception handler. We have to use #ResponseBody to ensure that Spring treats the returned object as something to be serialised out. Otherwise we will just get the standard HTML exception report.
Validator
Here we use a pretty standard validator implementation.
#Component
public class MyCustomValidator implements Validator {
#Override
public boolean supports(Class<?> clazz) {
return MyHeaderObj.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz);
}
#Override
public void validate(Object target, Errors errors) {
...
errors.rejectValue("fieldName", "ErrorCode", "Invalid ...");
}
}
One thing that I still don't really get with this is the supports(Class<?> clazz) method. I would have thought that Spring uses this method to test arguments to decide if this validator should apply. But it doesn't. Hence all the code in the #InitBinder to decide when to apply this validator.
The Argument Handler
This is the biggest piece of code. Here we need to generate the MyHeaderObj object to be passed to the #RequestMapping. Spring will auto detect this class.
public class MyHeaderObjArgumentHandler implements HandlerMethodArgumentResolver {
#Override
public boolean supportsParameter(MethodParameter parameter) {
return MyHeaderObj.class.isAssignableFrom(parameter.getParameterType());
}
#Override
public Object resolveArgument(
MethodParameter parameter,
ModelAndViewContainer mavContainer,
NativeWebRequest webRequest,
WebDataBinderFactory binderFactory) throws Exception {
// Code to generate the instance of MyHeaderObj!
MyHeaderObj myHeaderObj = ...;
// Call validators if the argument has validation annotations.
WebDataBinder binder = binderFactory.createBinder(webRequest, myHeaderObj, parameter.getParameterName());
this.validateIfApplicable(binder, parameter);
if (binder.getBindingResult().hasErrors()) {
throw new MyCustomException(myHeaderObj);
}
return myHeaderObj;
}
protected void validateIfApplicable(WebDataBinder binder, MethodParameter methodParam) {
Annotation[] annotations = methodParam.getParameterAnnotations();
for (Annotation ann : annotations) {
Validated validatedAnn = AnnotationUtils.getAnnotation(ann, Validated.class);
if (validatedAnn != null || ann.annotationType().getSimpleName().startsWith("Valid")) {
Object hints = (validatedAnn != null ? validatedAnn.value() : AnnotationUtils.getValue(ann));
Object[] validationHints = (hints instanceof Object[] ? (Object[]) hints : new Object[] { hints });
binder.validate(validationHints);
break;
}
}
}
}
The main job of this class is to use whatever means it requires to build the argument (myHeaderObj). Once built it then proceeds to call the Spring validators to check this instance. If there is a problem (as detected by checking the returned errors), it then throws an exception that the #ExceptionHandler's can detect and process.
Note the validateIfApplicable(WebDataBinder binder, MethodParameter methodParam) method. This is code I found in a number of Spring's classes. It's job is to detect if any argument has a #Validated or #Valid annotation and if so, call the associated validators. By default, Spring does not do this for custom argument handlers like this one, so it's up to us to add this functionality. Seriously Spring ???? No AbstractSomething ????
The last piece, explicit Exception catches
Lastly I also needed to catch more explicit exceptions. For example the MyCustomException thrown above. So here I created a second #ControllerAdvise.
#ControllerAdvice
#Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE) // Make sure we get the highest priority.
public class MyCustomExceptionHandler {
#ExceptionHandler
#ResponseStatus(value = HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST)
#ResponseBody
public Response handleException(MyCustomException e) {
MyMsgObject myMsgObject = new MyMsgObject();
myMsgObject.setStatus(MyStatus.Failure);
myMsgObject.setMessage(e.getMessage());
return myMsgObject;
}
}
Although superficially the similar to the general exception handler. There is one different. We need to specify the #Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE) annotation. Without this, Spring will just execute the first exception handler that matches the thrown exception. Regardless of whether there is a better matching handler or not. So we use this annotation to ensure that this exception handler is given precedence over the general one.
Summary
This solution works well for me. I'm not sure that I've got the best solution and there may be Spring classes which I've not found which can help. I hope this helps anyone with the same or similar problems.

GWT Editor Validation HasEditorErrors is always empty

I am using the GWT Editor and javax validation.
I have a model bean with a child bean like so ->
public interface BeanA {
#Valid
BeanB getBeanB();
void setBeanB(BeanB b);
}
public interface BeanB {
#NotEmpty
public String getValue();
public void setValue(String value);
}
There is a Widget that implements the LeafValueEditor, HasEditorErrors interfaces.
The value seems to be binding with no issue.
public class MyWidget extends Composite implements
LeafValueEditor<String>, HasEditorErrors<String>{
...
#Override
public void showErrors(List<EditorError> errors) {
// Even though the error is flagged
// the errors collection does not contain it.
}
}
When I call validate and the widget getValue returns null, the ConstraintViolation collection contains the error but when showErrors is called, the List is empty.
Any idea why the violation is found but then does not make it to the widget showErrors?
If you're using GWT Editor, you would have SimpleBeanEditorDriver interface created by GWT.create(...). this interface has a method setConstraintViolations(violations) which gets your constraint violation from you. when you validate your Model, you would have Set<ConstraintViolation<E>> as violations, then you would pass this to your editor driver. for example
Set<ConstraintViolation<E>> violations = getValidator().validate(model,
groups);
getEditorDriver().setConstraintViolations(violations)
After this, you would get widget-specific errors on the widget's showErrors(List<EditorError> errors) method.
This appears to be a GWT 2.4 issue. I did the same example in GWT 2.5 and the path was correctly set and the error collection was correct.

Why is my Spring 3 Validator Validating Everything on the Model?

I have a spring 3 controller with a validator for one of the methods. It insists on validating every object on the model. Would anyone be able to explain to me why it does this or if I'm doing something wrong?
According to the docs, 5.7.4.3 Configuring a JSR-303 Validator for use by Spring MVC (http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.0.RC3/spring-framework-reference/html/ch05s07.html)
With JSR-303, a single javax.validation.Validator instance typically validates all model objects that declare validation constraints. To configure a JSR-303-backed Validator with Spring MVC, simply add a JSR-303 Provider, such as Hibernate Validator, to your classpath. Spring MVC will detect it and automatically enable JSR-303 support across all Controllers.
Example:
#Controller
public class WhaleController {
#Autowired
private Validator myValidator;
#Autowired
private WhaleService whaleService;
#InitBinder
protected void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
binder.setValidator(this.myValidator);
}
#RequestMapping(value="/save-the-whales")
#Transactional
public void saveTheWhales(#Valid WhaleFormData formData, BindingResult errors, Model model) {
if (!errors.hasFieldErrors()) {
Whale whale = new Whale();
whale.setBreed( formData.getBreed() );
this.whaleService.saveWhale( whale );
model.addAttribute("whale", whale);
}
model.addAttribute("errors", errors.getFieldErrors());
}
}
When run it will complain that Whale is an invalid target for myValidator (which is set to validate WhaleFormData, and does so fine). Whale is a POJO with no validation constraints, annotation and no config anywhere. Through trial and error I've found that ANY object placed on the model will attempt to be validated and fail if the validator is not setup to handle it. Primitives are just fine.
Can anyone tell me why this is, point me to the appropriate documentation and/or tell me the best way to put something on the model without having it validated?
In the case above I would like to place "whale" on the model as it will now have a unique whaleId() that it received from my persistence layer.
Thanks!
I guess this behaviour is not covered in the documentation well.
The problem is caused by the following:
By default, #InitBinder-annotated method is called for each non-primitive model attribute, both incoming and outcoming (the purpose of calling it for outcoming attibutes is to allow you to register custom PropertyEditors, which are used by form tags when rendering a form).
DataBinder.setValidator() contains a defensive check that call Validator.supports() and throws an exception if false is returned. So, there is no attempt to perform a validation, just an early check.
The solution is to restrict the scope of #InitBinder to particular attribute:
#InitBinder("whaleFormData")
protected void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) { ... }

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