Grails GORM mapping contraints for varchar columns

Question

I'm reviewing codes made by previous employees that served the same project as mine. While I'm reviewing their code, I encountered many Domain class constraints similar to this:

String title
String notes

static mapping = {
    .....
    title column: 'title'
    notes column: 'notes'
    .....
}

static constraints = {
    .....
    title nullable: false, size: 1..50, blank: true
    notes nullable: true, size: 0..500, blank: true
    .....
}

I get the point that null values and empty strings are different, hence the nullable and blank constraints. But should you really specify 0 as the minimum length of nullable columns and specify 1 to those non-nullable columns?

If it is indeed, then what would be the difference to those Domains that doesn't use similar constraints? Before reading their codes, I've already coded many Domain classes just using only the nullable constraint, and they're working just fine.

Answer 1

I think there is redundancy on the constraints.

I would have refactored it to something like this:

static constraints = {
    .....
    title nullable: false, max:50
    notes nullable: true, max:500
    .....
}