A good data validation strategy is an important part of every application development project. Being able to consolidate and generalize validation using a proven framework can significantly improve the reliability of your software, especially over time.
Whereas unstructured and uncontrolled validation policies will lead to increased support and maintenance costs, a consolidated validation strategy can significantly minimize the cascade effect of changes to your code base. A validation layer can also be a very useful tool for some types of debugging.
I recently needed to implement a lightweight validation framework for a project. I discovered Hibernate Validator, an open source project from JBoss. The framework impressed me with its simplicity and flexibility, so I am introducing it with this Java Tip. I'll share my experience with setting up and using Hibernate Validator, with simple use cases that demonstrate key features such as declarative annotations, composite validation rules, and selective validation.
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