[hibernate-dev] [BV] New Path API

Hi, I was integrating the new Path API into Hibernate Validator and here are some thoughts about it. #1 Would it be worth to have a getLeafNode() method in the API. In many cases you need that the leaf and the only way to get to it at the moment is to use the Iterator. It would also help for my second point #2 TraversableResolver.isReachable and TraversableResolver.isCascadable both take in their current version a Node (the leaf) and a Path (the parent path) as parameter. Why not just pass a Path instance. Together with getLeafNode() we would almost have everything we need ;-) #3 The Path API only specifies methods to iterate existing Path instances. But at some stage one has to build these path instances as well. Since the API does not have a Path.addNode() (or similar) I am forced to use the Hibernate Validator specific PathImpl all over the place. Wouldn't it make sense to also add addNode() to the interface? Even though ErrorBuilder pattern in ConstraintValidatorContext is quite nice and the API allows now for proper validating of Maps, there are still some semantic gaps in the overall API. For example, Validator.validateValue and Validator.validateProperty both take a String repesentation of the property to be validated. If the validation fails the returned ConstraintValidationException contains however a Path instance describing the property path. This makes it quite hard to compare the input property with the property in the ConstraintViolation. I am not 100% convinced by this new Path API yet. As an internal data structure yes, but if it should be part of the official API - not sure. --Hardy