grails validate method on domain object

Question

I wrote a very simple test case and found that Grails does only a shallow validation when i call validate on a domain object. Is it possible for me to do a deep validation in grails? Can anybody help me?

class Person {
  Address address
}

class Address {
 String city
}

When i do new Address().validate() it returns false but when i do new Person(address: new Address()).validate it returns true.

robbbert robbbert · Accepted Answer · 2010-11-19T14:21:21

While "deep validation" currently isn't documented for the validate() and save() methods, it will be in future (the document states that the documentation has been missing, while being relevant for the complete 1.3.x tree). The documentation on these methods' deepValidate parameter then will state:

@deepValidate@ (optional) - Determines whether associations of the domain instance should also be validated, i.e. whether validation cascades or not. This is @true@ by default - set to @false@ to disable cascading validation.

Tests, however, show that "deep validation" is not performed in any of these cases:

one-to-one associations
one-to-many associations
- associated objects assigned using the matching setter
- associated objects assigned using the matching addTo*(..) method, e.g., person.addToAddresses(..)
using both the validate() and save() methods,
- and also, using both methods with an explicit deepValidate: true parameter

Similar findings have been published at another place, categorizing the "non-behavior" as a "known issue". My own, comprehensive, test cases can be downloaded from here.

The solution, finally, is to manually invoke validation on the child object:

class Person {
    Address primaryAddress
    static hasMany = [secondaryAddresses: Address]

    static constraints = { 
        primaryAddress validator: { 
            it?.validate()
        }
        secondaryAddresses validator: {
            it?.every { it?.validate() }
        }
    }
}

grails validate method on domain object

1 Answers