Re: [hibernate-dev] Message-Templates from multiple JARs

I agree with Max, I think there should be some way for packaging message bundles within components containing constraint annotations, while offering the possibility to optionally override these with custom messages if required. With respect to large-scale enterprise apps, I guess it can become quite impractical to demand, that all component teams provide one single message bundle. Also having to copy contents of message bundles from 3rd-party libs containing constraint annotations to the local bundle could get somewhat tedious. Providing a custom MessageInterpolator might be viable, nevertheless I think, such a mechanism should work out of the box.

Not sure though, what the best solution here is. I also thought about merging the ValidationMessages.properties from different libraries/components (similar to what java.util.ServiceLoader does) into one bundle, giving the contents from the local ValidationMessages.properties precedence. That way components could provide message texts for their constraints (name clashes are possible but actually shouldn't happen, as message keys should be fully-qualified), while offering the possibility to override these texts within the local bundle if required.