JSR-303 Bean Validation for enum fields

Question

I have a simple bean with enum field

public class TestBean{
   @Pattern(regexp = \"A|B\") //does not work
   private TestEnum testField;
   //getter         


        

Answer 1

If you want to put the constraint on testField you need a custom validator. None of the default ones handle enums.

As a workaround you could add a getter method which returns the string value of the enum

public class TestBean{
   private TestEnum testField;
   //getters + setters

   @Pattern(regexp = "A|B") //does not work
   private String getTestFieldName() {
       return testField.name();
   }
}

A custom validator is probably the cleaner solution though.