Re: [bv-dev] Should getters be considered methods during validation

Hi, I think getters should be handled as any other methods during method validation. Not considering them during method validation would IMO be some form irregularity, causing getter-named methods not to be validated although a user might expect it: //subject to method validation public class OrderService { //not validated upon invocation @NotNull List<Order> getAllOrders() { ... } //validated upon invocation @NotNull Order findOrderById(long id) { ... } } I'd also expect that in many cases different types/objects are subject to method validation than to validation of property-level constraints. IMO the former typically applies more on a service level (e.g. via CDI), while the latter typically applies to model objects/bean (e.g. via JPA), so maybe there is not really a big area of overlap. Things of course change a bit when taking technologies such as AspectJ into account which could apply a method validation interceptor to any kind of object. But also then I'd say a validation of getter (property) constraints during method validation shouldn't do any harm. One could still make use of validation groups to control which constraints are to be applied. Maybe we could even consider providing a mechanism to optionally apply getter constraints upon invocation of the corresponding setter to avoid storing illegal parameter values in the first place? @Matt: How is it in Apache Validation, are there any mechanisms to control the exact behavior? In HV, getters are handled as any other methods. --Gunnar 2012/10/26 Emmanuel Bernard <emmanuel(a)hibernate.org&gt;: