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Bean Validation API
There is a newer version: 2.0.1.Final
/*
* JBoss, Home of Professional Open Source
* Copyright 2009, Red Hat, Inc. and/or its affiliates, and individual contributors
* by the @authors tag. See the copyright.txt in the distribution for a
* full listing of individual contributors.
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
package javax.validation;

import java.util.Set;
import javax.validation.groups.Default;
import javax.validation.metadata.BeanDescriptor;

/**
 * Validates bean instances. Implementations of this interface must be thread-safe.
 *
 * @author Emmanuel Bernard
 * @author Hardy Ferentschik
 * @author Gunnar Morling
 */
public interface Validator {
	/**
	 * Validates all constraints on {@code object}.
	 *
	 * @param object object to validate
	 * @param groups The group or list of groups targeted for validation (defaults to
	 * {@link Default}).
	 *
	 * @return constraint violations or an empty set if none
	 *
	 * @throws IllegalArgumentException if object is {@code null}
	 * or if {@code null} is passed to the varargs groups
	 * @throws ValidationException if a non recoverable error happens
	 * during the validation process
	 */
	 Set> validate(T object, Class... groups);

	/**
	 * Validates all constraints placed on the property of {@code object}
	 * named {@code propertyName}.
	 *
	 * @param object object to validate
	 * @param propertyName property to validate (i.e. field and getter constraints)
	 * @param groups The group or list of groups targeted for validation (defaults to
	 * {@link Default}).
	 *
	 * @return constraint violations or an empty set if none
	 *
	 * @throws IllegalArgumentException if {@code object} is {@code null},
	 * if {@code propertyName} is {@code null}, empty or not a valid object property
	 * or if {@code null} is passed to the varargs groups
	 * @throws ValidationException if a non recoverable error happens
	 * during the validation process
	 */
	 Set> validateProperty(T object,
													 String propertyName,
													 Class... groups);

	/**
	 * Validates all constraints placed on the property named {@code propertyName}
	 * of the class {@code beanType} would the property value be {@code value}.
	 * 
	 * {@code ConstraintViolation} objects return {@code null} for
	 * {@link ConstraintViolation#getRootBean()} and {@link ConstraintViolation#getLeafBean()}
	 * 
	 *
	 * @param beanType the bean type
	 * @param propertyName property to validate
	 * @param value property value to validate
	 * @param groups The group or list of groups targeted for validation (defaults to
	 * {@link Default}).
	 *
	 * @return constraint violations or an empty set if none
	 *
	 * @throws IllegalArgumentException if {@code beanType} is {@code null},
	 * if {@code propertyName} is {@code null}, empty or not a valid object property
	 * or if {@code null} is passed to the varargs groups
	 * @throws ValidationException if a non recoverable error happens
	 * during the validation process
	 */
	 Set> validateValue(Class beanType,
												  String propertyName,
												  Object value,
												  Class... groups);

	/**
	 * Return the descriptor object describing bean constraints.
	 * The returned object (and associated objects including
	 * {@code ConstraintDescriptor}s) are immutable.
	 *
	 * @param clazz class or interface type evaluated
	 *
	 * @return the bean descriptor for the specified class.
	 *
	 * @throws IllegalArgumentException if clazz is {@code null}
	 * @throws ValidationException if a non recoverable error happens
	 * during the metadata discovery or if some
	 * constraints are invalid.
	 */
	BeanDescriptor getConstraintsForClass(Class clazz);

	/**
	 * Return an instance of the specified type allowing access to
	 * provider-specific APIs. If the Bean Validation provider
	 * implementation does not support the specified class,
	 * {@code ValidationException} is thrown.
	 *
	 * @param type the class of the object to be returned.
	 *
	 * @return an instance of the specified class
	 *
	 * @throws ValidationException if the provider does not support the call.
	 */
	 T unwrap(Class type);

	/**
	 * Returns a delegate for validating parameters and return values of methods
	 * respectively constructors.
	 *
	 * @return A delegate for method and constructor validation.
	 *
	 * @since 1.1
	 */
	ExecutableValidator forExecutables();
}