There are pros and cons for considering validation as business logic, and Spring offers a design for validation (and data binding) that does not exclude either one of them. Specifically validation should not be tied to the web tier, should be easy to localize and it should be possible to plug in any validator available. Considering the above, Spring has come up with a Validator interface that is both basic and eminently usable in every layer of an application.

Data binding is useful for allowing user input to be dynamically bound to the domain model of an application (or whatever objects you use to process user input). Spring provides the so-called DataBinder to do exactly that. The Validator and the DataBinder make up the validation package, which is primarily used in but not limited to the MVC framework.

The BeanWrapper is a fundamental concept in the Spring Framework and is used in a lot of places. However, you probably will not ever have the need to use the BeanWrapper directly. Because this is reference documentation however, we felt that some explanation might be right. We're explaining the BeanWrapper in this chapter since if you were going to use it at all, you would probably do that when trying to bind data to objects, which is strongly related to the BeanWrapper.

Spring uses PropertyEditors all over the place. The concept of a PropertyEditor is part of the JavaBeans specification. Just as the BeanWrapper, it's best to explain the use of PropertyEditors in this chapter as well, since it's closely related to the BeanWrapper and the DataBinder.

Spring's features a Validator interface that you can use to validate objects. The Validator interface works using an Errors object so that while validating, validators can report validation failures to the Errors object.

Let's consider a small data object:

public class Person {

  private String name;
  private int age;

  // the usual getters and setters...
}

We're going to provide validation behavior for the Person class by implementing the following two methods of the org.springframework.validation.Validator interface:

Implementing a Validator is fairly straightforward, especially when you know of the ValidationUtils helper class that the Spring Framework also provides.

public class PersonValidator implements Validator {
    
    /**
    * This Validator validates just Person instances
    */
    public boolean supports(Class clazz) {
        return Person.class.equals(clazz);
    }
    
    public void validate(Object obj, Errors e) {
        ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmpty(e, "name", "name.empty");
        Person p = (Person) obj;
        if (p.getAge() < 0) {
            e.rejectValue("age", "negativevalue");
        } else if (p.getAge() > 110) {
            e.rejectValue("age", "too.darn.old");
        }
    }
}

As you can see, the static rejectIfEmpty(..) method on the ValidationUtils class is used to reject the 'name' property if it is null or the empty string. Have a look at the Javadoc for the ValidationUtils class to see what functionality it provides besides the example shown previously.

While it is certainly possible to implement a single Validator class to validate each of the nested objects in a rich object, it may be better to encapsulate the validation logic for each nested class of object in its own Validator implementation. A simple example of a 'rich' object would be a Customer that is composed of two String properties (a first and second name) and a complex Address object. Address objects may be used independant of Customer objects, and so a distinct AddressValidator has been implemented. If you want your CustomerValidator to reuse the logic contained within the AddressValidator class without recourse to copy-n-paste you can dependency-inject or instantiate an AddressValidator within your CustomerValidator, and use it like so:

public class CustomerValidator implements Validator {

   private final Validator addressValidator;

   public UserValidator(Validator addressValidator) {
      if (addressValidator == null) {
          throw new IllegalArgumentException("The supplied [Validator] is required and must not be null.");
      }
      if (!addressValidator.supports(Address.class)) {
          throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "The supplied [Validator] must support the validation of [Address] instances.");
      }
      this.addressValidator = addressValidator;
   }

    /**
    * This Validator validates Customer instances, and any subclasses of Customer too
    */
   public boolean supports(Class clazz) {
      return Customer.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz);
   }

   public void validate(Object target, Errors errors) {
      ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors, "firstName", "field.required");
      ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors, "surname", "field.required");
      Customer customer = (Customer) target;
      try {
          errors.pushNestedPath("address");
          ValidationUtils.invokeValidator(this.addressValidator, customer.getAddress(), errors);
      } finally {
          errors.popNestedPath();
      }
   }
}

Validation errors are reported to the Errors object passed to the validator. In case of Spring Web MVC you can use <spring:bind/> tag to inspect the error messages, but of course you can also inspect the errors object yourself. More information about the methods it offers can be found from the Javadoc.

We've talked about databinding and validation. Outputting messages corresponding to validation errors is the last thing we need to discuss. In the example we've shown above, we rejected the name and the age field. If we're going to output the error messages by using a MessageSource, we will do so using the error code we've given when rejecting the field ('name' and 'age' in this case). When you call (either directly, or indirectly, using for example the ValidationUtils class) rejectValue or one of the other reject methods from the Errors interface, the underlying implementation will not only register the code you've passed in, but also a number of additional error codes. What error codes it registers is determined by the MessageCodesResolver that is used. By default, the DefaultMessageCodesResolver is used, which for example not only registers a message with the code you gave, but also messages that include the field name you passed to the reject method. So in case you reject a field using rejectValue("age", "too.darn.old"), apart from the too.darn.old code, Spring will also register too.darn.old.age and too.darn.old.age.int (so the first will include the field name and the second will include the type of the field); this is done as a convenience to aid developers in targeting error messages and suchlike.

More information on the MessageCodesResolver and the default strategy can be found online with the Javadocs for MessageCodesResolver and DefaultMessageCodesResolver respectively.

The org.springframework.beans package adheres to the JavaBeans standard provided by Sun. A JavaBean is simply a class with a default no-argument constructor, which follows a naming conventions where a property named bingoMadness has a setter setBingoMadness(..) and a getter getBingoMadness(). For more information about JavaBeans and the specification, please refer to Sun's website (java.sun.com/products/javabeans).

One quite important concept of the beans package is the BeanWrapper interface and its corresponding implementation (BeanWrapperImpl). As quoted from the Javadoc, the BeanWrapper offers functionality to set and get property values (individually or in bulk), get property descriptors, and to query properties to determine if they are readable or writable. Also, the BeanWrapper offers support for nested properties, enabling the setting of properties on sub-properties to an unlimited depth. Then, the BeanWrapper supports the ability to add standard JavaBeans PropertyChangeListeners and VetoableChangeListeners, without the need for supporting code in the target class. Last but not least, the BeanWrapper provides support for the setting of indexed properties. The BeanWrapper usually isn't used by application code directly, but by the DataBinder and the BeanFactory.

The way the BeanWrapper works is partly indicated by its name: it wraps a bean to perform actions on that bean, like setting and retrieving properties.

public class Company {
    private String name;
    private Employee managingDirector;

    public String getName()	{ 
        return this.name; 
    }
    public void setName(String name) { 
        this.name = name; 
    } 
    public Employee getManagingDirector() { 
        return this.managingDirector; 
    }
    public void setManagingDirector(Employee managingDirector) {
        this.managingDirector = managingDirector;
    }
}

public class Employee {
    private float salary;

    public float getSalary() {
        return salary;
    }
    public void setSalary(float salary) {
        this.salary = salary;
    }
}

BeanWrapper company = BeanWrapperImpl(new Company());
// setting the company name..
company.setPropertyValue("name", "Some Company Inc.");
// ... can also be done like this:
PropertyValue value = new PropertyValue("name", "Some Company Inc.");
company.setPropertyValue(value);

// ok, let's create the director and tie it to the company:
BeanWrapper jim = BeanWrapperImpl(new Employee());
jim.setPropertyValue("name", "Jim Stravinsky");
company.setPropertyValue("managingDirector", jim.getWrappedInstance());

// retrieving the salary of the managingDirector through the company
Float salary = (Float) company.getPropertyValue("managingDirector.salary");

com
  chank
    pop
      Foo
      FooEditor   // the PropertyEditor for the Foo class

com
  chank
    pop
      Foo
      FooBeanInfo   // the BeanInfo for the Foo class

public class FooBeanInfo extends SimpleBeanInfo {
      
    public PropertyDescriptor[] getPropertyDescriptors() {
        try {
            final PropertyEditor numberPE = new CustomNumberEditor(Integer.class, true);
            PropertyDescriptor ageDescriptor = new PropertyDescriptor("age", Foo.class) {
                public PropertyEditor createPropertyEditor(Object bean) {
                    return numberPE;
                };
            };
            return new PropertyDescriptor[] { ageDescriptor };
        }
        catch (IntrospectionException ex) {
            throw new Error(ex.toString());
        }
    }
}

package example;
		
public class ExoticType {

    private String name;

    public ExoticType(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
}

public class DependsOnExoticType { 
   
    private ExoticType type;

    public void setType(ExoticType type) {
        this.type = type;
    }
}

<bean id="sample" class="example.DependsOnExoticType">
    <property name="type" value="aNameForExoticType"/>
</bean>

// converts string representation to ExoticType object
package example;

public class ExoticTypeEditor extends PropertyEditorSupport {

    private String format;

    public void setFormat(String format) {
        this.format = format;
    }
    
    public void setAsText(String text) {
        if (format != null && format.equals("upperCase")) {
            text = text.toUpperCase();
        }
        ExoticType type = new ExoticType(text);
        setValue(type);
    }
}

<bean id="customEditorConfigurer" 
    class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.CustomEditorConfigurer">
  <property name="customEditors">
    <map>
      <entry key="example.ExoticType">
        <bean class="example.ExoticTypeEditor">
          <property name="format" value="upperCase"/>
        </bean>
      </entry>
    </map>
  </property>
</bean>