[jsr-314-open] clarification on f:validateRequired

[Michael Concini]

I'm doing some testing on MyFaces to make sure all is behaving as 
described in the spec for some of the new tags.  I've run into an issue 
where I need some clarification on the spec though regarding the 
validateRequired tag. 

The confusion lies in what the interaction and precedence should be for 
the validateRequired tag vs. the javax.faces.VALIDATE_EMPTY_FIELDS param 
setting and the algorithm specified for UIInput.validateValue(). 

The validateValue algorithm says that if 
javax.faces.VALIDATE_EMPTY_FIELDS has not been set, that we only execute 
the validators if bean validation is present.  This, however, will 
prevent the RequiredValidator from executing as well.  Since the javadoc 
states that adding an f::validateRequired tag has the same affect as 
setting required="true" on the UIInput, it would seem that at least for 
this validator, we need to validate empty fields even if bean validation 
is not present. 

What is the proper behavior here?  Should we be ignoring the 
validateRequired tag unless bean validation is present?  Should we be 
executing only the RequiredValidator if one is attached?  all validators 
if a RequiredValidator is attached?  What about if VALIDATE_EMPTY_FIELDS 
is explicitly set to false? 

Any clarification on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike