[hibernate-dev] Exception model

I spent a long time scrutinizing the spec for exception cases. This email list exceptional cases and propose to associate specific exceptions to them or not. Please review and tell me: - if you think I forgot cases that needs additional consideration. - which model you favor (see B) A. EXCEPTION CASES I described the error cases and a fine grained Exception model (see B) and have a few questions see ??? 1. Error report Use for other frameworks to report violation reports ** * Report the result of constraint violations * * @author Emmanuel Bernard */ public class ConstraintViolationException extends ValidationException { private final Set<ConstraintViolation> constraintViolations; /** * Creates a constraint violation report * * @param message error message * @param constraintViolations Set of ConstraintViolation */ public ConstraintViolationException(String message, Set<ConstraintViolation> constraintViolations) { super( message ); this.constraintViolations = constraintViolations; } /** * Creates a constraint violation report * * @param constraintViolations Set of ConstraintViolation */ public ConstraintViolationException(Set<ConstraintViolation> constraintViolations) { super(); this.constraintViolations = constraintViolations; } /** * Set of constraint violations reported during a validation * * @return Set of CosntraintViolation */ public Set<ConstraintViolation> getConstraintViolations() { return constraintViolations; } } 2. Execution exceptions ie during validator.validate(...); Constraint Declaration These can be found a compilation time with an annotation processor or an IDE ??? UnsupportedTypeException or should it be AmbiguousConstraintUsageException More than one ConstraintValidator targeting the same type declared property type property has too many matches UnsupportedTypeException declared property type property has no match ConstraintDefinitionException composition parameter overriding (name, composing constraint or incompatible parameter types) constraint composed of itself Constraint implementation ConstraintInitializationException ??? initialize() must raise a RTE will be wrapped OR should we not wrap UnsupportedTypeException isValid incompatible type (detected by impl) => same as "declared property type property has no match" ConstraintExcecutionException isValid throws a RTE will be wrapped into ConstraintValidatorExecutionException ConstraintCreationException ConstraintValidatorFactory fails with RTE. Wraps it. ??? should we collapse that into a ConstraintExecutionException or even ValidationException Groups Can be checked at built time by an IDE or an AnnotationProcessor GroupDefinitionException cyclic dependency between groups sequences and group inheritance missing group X on a Default group overriding Group sequence name used in a constraint declaration group is not an interface Various IllegalArgumentException if object to validate is null, or empty set? ??? Calls to SPi like MessageInterpolator / TraversableResolver should be wrapped? 3. Bootstrap ProviderNotFoundException cannot find matching provider cannot find any provider ConfigurationException cannot read XML cong more than one XML conf no no-arg constructor on classes described by XML MappingException cannot read XML mapping entity described more than once field/getter described more than once Wrong class / field / getter name Wrong constraint declaration Wrong constraint definition B. EXCEPTION MODEL We have three approaches: 1. specialize an exception when the application can do something about it In this case all exceptions are ValidationException except ConstraintViolationException 2. specialize exceptions to provide informations to the user ValidationException (root) ConstraintViolationException AmbiguousConstraintUsageException UnsupportedTypeException ConstraintDefinitionException ConstraintInitializationException ConstraintExcecutionException ConstraintCreationException GroupDefinitionException ProviderNotFoundException ConfigurationException MappingException 3. a man in the middle approach with some exception collapsing ValidationException (root) ConstraintViolationException ConstraintDeclarationException (instead of UnsupportedTypeException and AmbiguousConstraintUsageException) ConstraintDefinitionException ConstraintExcecutionException GroupDefinitionException ConfigurationException