[bv-dev] Validator#validateValue() with incompatible Object specified

[Matt Benson]

Hi, this comes from TCK
ValidateValueTest#testValidIsNotHonoredValidateValue() . The test
asserts that no constraint violations (and no exceptions) will be
generated when specifying an Order as a proposed value for a property
that includes a Set of Orders. The name of the test suggests to me,
however, that the Validator is expected to transparently treat the
Order as a single-element Set and simply show that validation of that
set is not cascaded. Is this the case, or is the test actually showing
that any incompatible value will be treated as raising no violations
(and is therefore imperfectly named)? In either case, where does the
specification dictate this behavior? Apache BVal has always raised an
IllegalArgumentException if the specified value is not compatible, but
its justification for having done so appears to be an artifact of an
incorrect interpretation of the Javadoc of #validateValue(): "not a
valid object property" was mistakenly applied to the "value" parameter
instead of to the "propertyName" parameter as a careful reading
reveals (IMO) is proper. But this exposes what seems to be an omission
in the spec: what *is* the proper behavior when validation of an
incompatible value is requested? And let's not forget the unclear
nature of the test in question: is "order" a compatible value by
virtue of being checked against a Set of its type (and, if so, why?),
or is "order" an incompatible value that the Validator quietly
abstains from checking at all?

Thanks,
Matt