Question

I have a field, say, user_name, that should be unique in a table.

What is the best way for validating it using Spring/Hibernate validation?

Answer 1

One of the possible solutions is to create custom @UniqueKey constraint (and corresponding validator); and to look-up the existing records in database, provide an instance of EntityManager (or Hibernate Session)to UniqueKeyValidator.

EntityManagerAwareValidator

public interface EntityManagerAwareValidator {  
     void setEntityManager(EntityManager entityManager); 
} 

ConstraintValidatorFactoryImpl

public class ConstraintValidatorFactoryImpl implements ConstraintValidatorFactory {

    private EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory;

    public ConstraintValidatorFactoryImpl(EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory) {
        this.entityManagerFactory = entityManagerFactory;
    }

    @Override
    public <T extends ConstraintValidator<?, ?>> T getInstance(Class<T> key) {
        T instance = null;

        try {
            instance = key.newInstance();
        } catch (Exception e) { 
            // could not instantiate class
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        if(EntityManagerAwareValidator.class.isAssignableFrom(key)) {
            EntityManagerAwareValidator validator = (EntityManagerAwareValidator) instance;
            validator.setEntityManager(entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager());
        }

        return instance;
    }
}

UniqueKey

@Constraint(validatedBy={UniqueKeyValidator.class})
@Target({ElementType.TYPE})
@Retention(RUNTIME)
public @interface UniqueKey {

    String[] columnNames();

    String message() default "{UniqueKey.message}";

    Class<?>[] groups() default {};

    Class<? extends Payload>[] payload() default {};

    @Target({ ElementType.TYPE })
    @Retention(RUNTIME)
    @Documented
    @interface List {
        UniqueKey[] value();
    }
}

UniqueKeyValidator

public class UniqueKeyValidator implements ConstraintValidator<UniqueKey, Serializable>, EntityManagerAwareValidator {

    private EntityManager entityManager;

    @Override
    public void setEntityManager(EntityManager entityManager) {
        this.entityManager = entityManager;
    }

    private String[] columnNames;

    @Override
    public void initialize(UniqueKey constraintAnnotation) {
        this.columnNames = constraintAnnotation.columnNames();

    }

    @Override
    public boolean isValid(Serializable target, ConstraintValidatorContext context) {
        Class<?> entityClass = target.getClass();

        CriteriaBuilder criteriaBuilder = entityManager.getCriteriaBuilder();

        CriteriaQuery<Object> criteriaQuery = criteriaBuilder.createQuery();

        Root<?> root = criteriaQuery.from(entityClass);

        List<Predicate> predicates = new ArrayList<Predicate> (columnNames.length);

        try {
            for(int i=0; i<columnNames.length; i++) {
                String propertyName = columnNames[i];
                PropertyDescriptor desc = new PropertyDescriptor(propertyName, entityClass);
                Method readMethod = desc.getReadMethod();
                Object propertyValue = readMethod.invoke(target);
                Predicate predicate = criteriaBuilder.equal(root.get(propertyName), propertyValue);
                predicates.add(predicate);
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        criteriaQuery.where(predicates.toArray(new Predicate[predicates.size()]));

        TypedQuery<Object> typedQuery = entityManager.createQuery(criteriaQuery);

        List<Object> resultSet = typedQuery.getResultList(); 

        return resultSet.size() == 0;
    }

}

Usage

@UniqueKey(columnNames={"userName"})
// @UniqueKey(columnNames={"userName", "emailId"}) // composite unique key
//@UniqueKey.List(value = {@UniqueKey(columnNames = { "userName" }), @UniqueKey(columnNames = { "emailId" })}) // more than one unique keys
public class User implements Serializable {

    private String userName;
    private String password;
    private String emailId;

    protected User() {
        super();
    }

    public User(String userName) {
        this.userName = userName;
    }
        ....
}

Test

public void uniqueKey() {
    EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("default");

    ValidatorFactory validatorFactory = Validation.buildDefaultValidatorFactory();
    ValidatorContext validatorContext = validatorFactory.usingContext();
    validatorContext.constraintValidatorFactory(new ConstraintValidatorFactoryImpl(entityManagerFactory));
    Validator validator = validatorContext.getValidator();

    EntityManager em = entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager();

    User se = new User("abc", poizon);

       Set<ConstraintViolation<User>> violations = validator.validate(se);
    System.out.println("Size:- " + violations.size());

    em.getTransaction().begin();
    em.persist(se);
    em.getTransaction().commit();

        User se1 = new User("abc");

    violations = validator.validate(se1);

    System.out.println("Size:- " + violations.size());
}