001/* 002 * Copyright 2002-2012 the original author or authors. 003 * 004 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); 005 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. 006 * You may obtain a copy of the License at 007 * 008 * https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 009 * 010 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 011 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, 012 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 013 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and 014 * limitations under the License. 015 */ 016 017package org.springframework.validation; 018 019/** 020 * Extended variant of the {@link Validator} interface, adding support for 021 * validation 'hints'. 022 * 023 * @author Juergen Hoeller 024 * @author Sam Brannen 025 * @since 3.1 026 */ 027public interface SmartValidator extends Validator { 028 029 /** 030 * Validate the supplied {@code target} object, which must be of a type of {@link Class} 031 * for which the {@link #supports(Class)} method typically returns {@code true}. 032 * <p>The supplied {@link Errors errors} instance can be used to report any 033 * resulting validation errors. 034 * <p><b>This variant of {@code validate()} supports validation hints, such as 035 * validation groups against a JSR-303 provider</b> (in which case, the provided hint 036 * objects need to be annotation arguments of type {@code Class}). 037 * <p>Note: Validation hints may get ignored by the actual target {@code Validator}, 038 * in which case this method should behave just like its regular 039 * {@link #validate(Object, Errors)} sibling. 040 * @param target the object that is to be validated (can be {@code null}) 041 * @param errors contextual state about the validation process (never {@code null}) 042 * @param validationHints one or more hint objects to be passed to the validation engine 043 * @see ValidationUtils 044 */ 045 void validate(Object target, Errors errors, Object... validationHints); 046 047}