[bv-dev] BVAL-341 - @Nullable

[Sebastian Thomschke]

Hi,

I am -1 for adding @Nullable only for the reason described in 
https://hibernate.onjira.com/browse/BVAL-341. It is redundant.

In OVal we are using an @Nullable annotation to weaken constraints in 
the context of programming by contract.

In the following example on class level is defined that all parameters 
of all methods require non-null values, this is then weakened for some 
of the parameters using @Nullable. This can be seen as a convenient 
approach used e.g. for classes where the majority of parameters must not 
be null and only a few should be nullable.

@net.sf.oval.guard.Guarded(assertParametersNotNull = true)
public static class TestEntity
{
         protected TestEntity1(final String param1, @Nullable final 
String param2)
         {  }

         public void setParam1(final String param1)
         {  }

         public void setParam2(@Nullable final String param2)
         {  }
}

Regards,
Seb

On 02.01.2013 13:15, Emmanuel Bernard wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Matthew argues for a new basic constraint named `@Nullable`. The goal is
> to make it clear when an element is nullable. Today you can guess it
> from the fact that it does not host a `@NotNull` constraint. But it's
> ambiguous as someone might have simply forgotten the constraint.
>
> https://hibernate.onjira.com/browse/BVAL-341
>
> I am not in favor of this for a few reasons. I think what Matthew is
> after is `@Nullable` with the semantic of JSR 305: the element is always
> nullable no matter what - and possibly can be computed by a tool at
> compile time. But since Bean Validation is only validated at specific
> moments in the life cycle of an object or method and that different
> groups can be validated, I don't feel that `@Nullable` would bring all
> the promises one would expect.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Emmanuel
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