Spring: custom validator is not being called

Question

I was looking at other questions about Spring custom validators but unfortunately I could not solve my problem with the proposed answers.

My problem is the following: I have an entity (Account) and I created a custom validator (AccountValidator) which I use in a controller (RegisterController), but it is never invoked, using the default Validator.

Am I forgetting something? I attach part of the code to help understand better my problem.

Validator:

public class AccountValidator implements Validator{

    @Override
    public boolean supports(Class<?> clazz) {
        return (Account.class).isAssignableFrom(clazz);
    }

    @Override
    public void validate(Object target, Errors errors) {

    //Validation code

    }

}

Controller:

@Controller
@RequestMapping(value = "/register")
public class RegisterController {

    @Autowired
    private AccountValidator accountValidator;

    @InitBinder
    public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
        binder.setDisallowedFields("id");
        binder.setValidator(accountValidator);
    }

    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
    @ModelAttribute
    public Account register(Locale currentLocale){
        Account account = new Account();
        return account;
    }

    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public String handleRegister(@Valid @ModelAttribute Account account, BindingResult result){
        if(result.hasErrors()){
            return "/register";
        }
        return "home";
    }
}

I checked my debug messages in the log, and the initBinder method is being called, but the validation method is never being executed.

Can anyone help me?

Answer 1

I was facing the same issue and i fixed it by declaring the class AccountValidator in context xml file and using @validated in place of @valid.