How do you get the Property Paths from a Class level Annotation violation

Question

I'm using Hibernate Validator. I have a Class level annotation. It compares three properties for equality. When the validation is performed I need to get the PropertyPaths from the javax.validation.ConstraintViolation object returned. Since it's not a single field the getPropertyPath() method returns null. Is there another way to find the PropertyPaths?

This is my annotation implementation -

@MatchField.List({
@MatchField(firstField = "firstAnswer", secondField = "secondAnswer", thirdField = "thirdAnswer"),
})

Answer 1

You need to set the messages to map to the properties that you want rejected when you do the validation. Hibernate Validator has no way to auto-magically figure out that custom annotation properties are property paths.

public class MatchFieldValidator implements ConstraintValidator<MatchField, Object> {

  private MatchField matchField;

  @Override
  public void initialize(MatchField matchField) {
    this.matchField = matchField;
  }

  @Override
  public boolean isValid(Object obj, ConstraintValidatorContext cvc) {

    //do whatever you do
    if (validationFails) {
      cvc.buildConstraintViolationWithTemplate("YOUR FIRST ANSWER INPUT IS WRONG!!!").
                        addNode(matchField.firstAnswer()).addConstraintViolation();
      cvc.buildConstraintViolationWithTemplate("YOUR SECOND ANSWER INPUT IS WRONG!!!").
                        addNode(matchField.secondAnswer()).addConstraintViolation();
      //you get the idea
      cvc.disableDefaultConstraintViolation();
      return false;
    }
  }
}