Is there an implementation of (or third-party implementation for) cross field validation in Hibernate Validator 4.x? If not, what is the cleanest way to implement a cross field validator?
As an example, how can you use the API to validate two bean properties are equal (such as validating a password field matches the password verify field).
In annotations, I'd expect something like:
public class MyBean {
@Size(min=6, max=50)
private String pass;
@Equals(property="pass")
private String passVerify;
}
Best Answer
Each field constraint should be handled by a distinct validator annotation, or in other words it's not suggested practice to have one field's validation annotation checking against other fields; cross-field validation should be done at the class level. Additionally, the JSR-303 Section 2.2 preferred way to express multiple validations of the same type is via a list of annotations. This allows the error message to be specified per match.
For example, validating a common form:
The Annotation:
The Validator: