Cross field validation with Hibernate Validator (JSR 303)

Question

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 fi

Answer 1

Very nice solution bradhouse. Is there any way to apply the @Matches annotation to more than one field?

EDIT: Here's the solution I came up with to answer this question, I modified the Constraint to accept an array instead of a single value:

@Matches(fields={"password", "email"}, verifyFields={"confirmPassword", "confirmEmail"})
public class UserRegistrationForm  {

    @NotNull
    @Size(min=8, max=25)
    private String password;

    @NotNull
    @Size(min=8, max=25)
    private String confirmPassword;


    @NotNull
    @Email
    private String email;

    @NotNull
    @Email
    private String confirmEmail;
}

The code for the annotation:

package springapp.util.constraints;

import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.*;
import static java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy.*;

import java.lang.annotation.Documented;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;

import javax.validation.Constraint;
import javax.validation.Payload;

@Target({TYPE, ANNOTATION_TYPE})
@Retention(RUNTIME)
@Constraint(validatedBy = MatchesValidator.class)
@Documented
public @interface Matches {

  String message() default "{springapp.util.constraints.matches}";

  Class[] groups() default {};

  Class[] payload() default {};

  String[] fields();

  String[] verifyFields();
}

And the implementation:

package springapp.util.constraints;

import javax.validation.ConstraintValidator;
import javax.validation.ConstraintValidatorContext;

import org.apache.commons.beanutils.BeanUtils;

public class MatchesValidator implements ConstraintValidator {

    private String[] fields;
    private String[] verifyFields;

    public void initialize(Matches constraintAnnotation) {
        fields = constraintAnnotation.fields();
        verifyFields = constraintAnnotation.verifyFields();
    }

    public boolean isValid(Object value, ConstraintValidatorContext context) {

        boolean matches = true;

        for (int i=0; i