net.sf.mmm.util.validation.api

Interface ValueValidator<V>

Type Parameters:

V - is the generic type of the value to validate.

All Known Implementing Classes:

AbstractValidator, AbstractValueValidator, ComposedValidator, ValidatorCompare, ValidatorDateFuture, ValidatorDatePast, ValidatorJsr303, ValidatorMandatory, ValidatorNone, ValidatorRange

public interface ValueValidator<V>

A ValueValidator allows to validate according values.
There can be arbitrary implementations of this interface. A regular implementation shall be stateless and therefore thread-safe. All parameterization shall therefore happen on initialization - ideally at construction.
NOTE:
This API intentionally does NOT make use of exceptions as they are expensive to produce and shall only occur in exceptional situations, while a validation failure is a regular use-case. Further, a validation shall validate entire objects to the end collecting all failures so the end-user can see and fix all problems at once.

Since:

3.0.0

Author:

Joerg Hohwiller (hohwille at users.sourceforge.net)

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
ValidationFailure	validate(V value) This method validates the given value.
ValidationFailure	validate(V value, Object valueSource) This method validates the given value.

Method Detail

validate

ValidationFailure validate(V value)

This method validates the given value.

Parameters:

value - is the value to validate.

Returns:

the ValidationFailure or null if the given value is valid according to this ValueValidator.

validate

ValidationFailure validate(V value,
                           Object valueSource)

This method validates the given value.

Parameters:

value - is the value to validate.

valueSource - is the source describing the origin of the given value. This may be the filename where the value was read from, an XPath where the value was located in an XML document, the label of a widget of the UI containing the value, etc. This will help to find the problem easier. The source needs to have a reasonable string-representation as this may be displayed to the end-user to locate the source of the failure. In most cases it is suitable to directly pass a String.

Returns:

the ValidationFailure or null if the given value is valid according to this ValueValidator.