Set groups dynamically to Spring Validator

Question

I'm implementing a Rest API where I have to do some validation on the request body. Based on a value defined in a field called "type" in my Json, I want to set groups to Spring Validator dynamically.

By looking to the documentation the only solution I found is to set @Validated annotation at method signature and hard coding the groups to pass to it.

I found an alternative solution using Validator from javax.validation package, and my code looks like this for now:

Validator validator = Validation.buildDefaultValidatorFactory().getValidator();
    Set<ConstraintViolation<EnterpriseResource>> constraintViolationSet = new HashSet<>();
    if (isTypeEnterprise(enterpriseResource, EnterpriseTypeEnum.BUYER)) {
      constraintViolationSet = validator.validate(enterpriseResource, BuyerEnterprise.class);
    }
    if (isTypeEnterprise(enterpriseResource, EnterpriseTypeEnum.PROVIDER)) {
      constraintViolationSet = validator.validate(enterpriseResource, ProviderEnterprise.class);
    }
    if (!constraintViolationSet.isEmpty()) {
      log.info("=========================ERRORS: {}", constraintViolationSet.toString());
      throw new ConstraintViolationException(constraintViolationSet);
    }

Is there any workaround so that I can get the same behavior using Spring native Validator instance?

Answer 1

Here is a helper class that makes use of spring MVC validator and allows you programmatically to specify validation groups.

@Component
public class ValidatorTool {
   private static final Method method = ValidatorTool.class.getMethods()[0];

   @Autowired
   @Qualifier("mvcValidator")
   private org.springframework.validation.Validator validator;


   @SneakyThrows
   public void validate(Object object, Object... validationGroups) {
       DataBinder binder = new DataBinder(object);
       binder.addValidators(validator);
       binder.validate(validationGroups);
       BindingResult br = binder.getBindingResult();


       if (br.hasErrors()) {
          log.info("Validation of {} failed: {}", object.getClass(), br.getAllErrors());
          throw new MethodArgumentNotValidException(
                new MethodParameter(method, 0),
                br);
       }
   }
}