Error messages are not in the correct order

Question

In my spring MVC validation, the order of my error messages changes randomly, I would like the messages to be in the same order as they appear on the page.

My AccountForm.java class looks like:

@NotNull(message = "Account name cannot be empty.")
@Size(min=3, max=50, message="Account name must be between 3 and 50 characters long.")
private String accountName;

@NotNull(message = "Company name cannot be empty.")
@Size(min=3, max=50, message="Company name must be between 3 and 50 characters long.")
private String companyName;

And I also append some custom errors in my controller:

   public ModelAndView create(@Valid AccountForm accountForm, BindingResult bindingResult) {

    ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("accounts/new");
    mav.addObject("errors", bindingResult.getAllErrors());
    mav.addObject("accountForm", accountForm);

    if (!bindingResult.hasErrors()) {
        if(accountService.findByAccountName(accountForm.getAccountName()) != null) {
            bindingResult.addError(new ObjectError("accountName", "Account name is already is use"));
        }
        ..
        ..
    }

    if(bindingResult.hasErrors() {
      return mav;
    }

    ..

When I hit submit on the form, the order of the messages keeps changing.

I render the errors in my view using:

        <#list errors as error>
            <li>${error.defaultMessage}</li>
        </#list>

Can this be fixed?

Answer 1

This is achieved via Validation Groups and Spring supportes it. You are using @Valid annotation, but it should have been @Validated in order to use Validation Groups:

 public ModelAndView submitSearch(@Validated(value={OrderChecks.class}) @ModelAttribute("SearchStringBackingObject") final SearchStringBackingObject backingObject

OrderChecks.class:

 @GroupSequence(value={NotEmptyGroup.class, LengthCheckGroup.class, DiacriticeCheckGroup.class, EmailValidationGroup.class, EmailLengthValidationGroup.class,
    Email3EntriesValidationGroup.class, EntityAlreadyExistsValidatorGroup.class, Default.class})
 public interface OrderChecks {}

And inside the backing Object:

 @NotBlank(groups=NotEmptyGroup.class)
@Length(max=25, groups=LengthCheckGroup.class)
@DiacriticeCheck(groups=DiacriticeCheckGroup.class)
private String firstname="";

where each of the Entries in the @GroupSequence is an interface.

EDIT

So if you want the account name to be validated first, then you create an interface for it:

public interface AccountNameGroup{}

Then inside the Validation Group interface you this is going to be the first interface:

@GroupSequence(value={AccountNameGroup.class, the rest of groups})
public interface OrderOfGroups{}

And of course inside the Controller you specify the @Validated annotation with the OrderOFGroups interface.

In this way the Account Name will be validated first

Answer 2

I also faced the same issue and tried a lot. I think there is now standard way of doing this in JSR-303.
This can be achieved using groups (which I personally dont like) or by defining <form:error> is desired sequence.