Register new constraint validator for standard bean validation annotation

Question

I'm wondering whether it's possible to register new constraint validator of some custom type to a annotation defined by Bean Validation specification. For example, let's image I have a class that accumulates several int values

public class IntContainer
{
  private int value1;
  private int value2;


  public int getValue1()
  {
    return value1;
  }


  public void setValue1(final int value1)
  {
    this.value1 = value1;
  }


  public int getValue2()
  {
    return value2;
  }


  public void setValue2(final int value2)
  {
    this.value2 = value2;
  }
}

I would like to register a custom constraint validator to support the @Positive annotation for this type (instead of created a custom annotation).

public class PositiveIntContainerValidator implements ConstraintValidator<Positive, IntContainer>
{
  @Override
  public boolean isValid(final IntContainer value, final ConstraintValidatorContext context)
  {
    //TODO: do some validation here based on IntContainer state
    return false;
  }
}

So that later I can use this:

@Positive
private IntContainer valueContainer;

Answer 1

A fully qualified name of your validator can be added to META-INF/services/javax.validation.ConstraintValidator file. This would allow Hibernate Validator to pick up your validator and it will be used for your custom types.

See more details if needed in this post (section "Use standard constraints for non standard classes")