On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 1:10 PM, Guillaume Smet <guillaume.smet(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
= 1. Type parameter information
== 1.1 Should we add the type parameter to the node?
Assume the example of a map:
private Map<@Valid City (1), @Valid Statistics (2)> map;
With the current way of doing things, you end up with the following paths:
(1) (name = map, type = PROPERTY) -> (name = name, type = PROPERTY,
isInIterable = true, key = city)
(2) (name = map, type = PROPERTY) -> (name = count, type = PROPERTY,
isInIterable = true, key = city)
So you wouldn't be able to differentiate if the violations is coming from
City or Statistics.
One of the ideas we had is to integrate the TypeVariable<?> type parameter
info into the last node. In the case of (1), you would have 2 nodes:
(1) (name = map, type = PROPERTY) -> (name = name, type = PROPERTY,
isInIterable = true, key = city, typeParameter = K)
(2) (name = map, type = PROPERTY) -> (name = count, type = PROPERTY,
isInIterable = true, key = city, typeParameter = V)
WDYT?
Looks bad, type parameter names in Java are considered documentation and
not something you cannot change during class evolution. For Map, it won't
ever change, but for other domain classes, it can change.
Type parameter *order*, though, cannot change without change meaning, so
that's the best option we have left :-(
== 1.2 If we add this information, what should it be?
At first, Gunnar thought about using java.lang.reflect.TypeVariable for
this type parameter information but we have an issue with it: it is not
serializable and the path is supposed to be.
Thus we need to either use a String with the name of the type parameter or
introduce our own serializable structure.
Introduce a serializable structure. :-(
What's your take on this? If we go the structure route, which information
should this structure contain apart from the name?
java.lang.reflect.TypeVariable also has the generic declaration information.
Do you foresee issues if we are not using java.lang.reflect.TypeVariable?
Typically it would be harder to do additional reflection things.
Yeah, as the generics model evolve, we might paint ourselves in the corner.
= 2. Type argument constraints
So, the discussion above also applies to type argument constraints but
there are some specific questions for them.
== 2.1 New node type
Type argument constraints cover the following case, ZipCode being a
constraint:
Map<@ZipCode String, String> map;
In this case, we envision the following node structure (assuming we would
add the typeParameter discussed in 1.1):
(name = map, type = property) -> (name = '<map key>', type =
TYPE_ARGUMENT, isInIterable = true, key = myKey, typeParameter = K)
TYPE_ARGUMENT is a new type introduced in javax.validation.ElementKind.
Does it make sense?
My answer from above applies here as well.
== 2.2 Default node names
The default extractors define the following node names for the added
TYPE_ARGUMENT node:
- arrays and Iterables (List included): <iterable element>
- Map key: <map key>
- Map value: <map value>
This is similar to the nodes we created for "<return value>" or
"<cross-parameter>" constraints.
Question: should they have a node name? should it be the type parameter
name instead (so E or K or V for instance)?
Note that this might have consequences in the string representation we
will discuss later.
If they must have a name, it will probably have to be named after the types
they apply to and type parameter order :-(
== 2.3 Optional and ObservableValue
In these 2 cases, we won't append a node.
Note that while in the ObservableValue case, it might feel more natural as
the constraint will probably be used like:
@NotBlank StringProperty property;
to apply a NotBlank constraint on the wrapped value so it's rather logical
to not have a node.
Just to be clear, for Optional, on the other hand, with our proposal, we
won't have a node whereas the code looks like:
Optional<@NotBlank String> optional;
Couldn't quite understand what comments I could make about it, so ok :-)
= 3 String representation
Note: this is implementation specific but we thought it might be
interesting to discuss it here anyway.
Sorry, too many nuances and I don't have a strong opinion here.
Regards,
Michael