[hibernate-dev] Public API of Hibernate Validator

[Gunnar Morling]

Hi guys,

currently I'm experimenting a bit with integrating Bean Validation in
general and Hibernate Validator in particular with OSGi. In that context I
wondered, whether there is some sort of "public" API of Hibernate Validator.
The generated HV OSGi manifest (see HV-267) currently exports all packages,
but I think there should be a more fine-grained distinction, which
packages/classes should be publicly available.

For instance "org.hibernate.validator" and
"org.hibernate.validator.constraints" would be part of such a public API
(while "org.hibernate.validator.constraints.impl" wouldn't). Things are
getting more complicated when looking at "org.hibernate.validator.engine".
Most of the classes there should be considered private to HV, but at least
ResourceBundleMessageInterpolator (together with the new stuff related to
ResourceBundleLocator in "org.hibernate.validator.engine.resourceloading")
is of interest for users/integrators.

Using OSGi, one can control exported types on a class level, but presumably
it makes things easier, if certain complete packages make up the public API.
Also besides the OSGi scenario I think it's useful to explicitly describe
the public API. That way users would know, which HV classes they are
"allowed" to use (and therefore can rely on their stability) and which ones
not. We OTOH would know which classes we can modify without the need to
maintain backward compatibility.

WDYT? If we come to the conclusion that for instance
ResourceBundleMessageInterpolator should be moved to another package, I
think it might be a good idea to do that for 4.1, as right now the number of
concerned classes still seems very limited.

Gunnar