JSR-303 validated property does not have a corresponding accessor for Spring data binding

Question

0.4 and hibernate validator 4.1.0.Final, I created a custom validator for validating password and confirmPassword fields, but the validator thrown the following exception:

00:16:11,891 DEBUG [org.hibernate.validator.resourceloading.PlatformResourceBundleLocator] (http--192.168.1.20-8080-6) ValidationMessages not found.
00:16:11,892 DEBUG [org.hibernate.validator.resourceloading.PlatformResourceBundleLocator] (http--192.168.1.20-8080-6) org.hibernate.validator.ValidationMessages found
00:16:11,894 DEBUG [org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerExceptionResolver] (http--192.168.1.20-8080-6) Resolving exception from handler [deliveries.manager.controller.AdminSignUpController@455901d2]: org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.support.HandlerMethodInvocationException: Failed to invoke handler method [public java.lang.String deliveries.manager.controller.AdminSignUpController.submitProduct(javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest,org.springframework.ui.Model,deliveries.manager.pagebean.AdminSignupBean,org.springframework.validation.BindingResult,org.springframework.ui.ModelMap)]; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: JSR-303 validated property 'password.confirmPassword' does not have a corresponding accessor for Spring data binding - check your DataBinder's configuration (bean property versus direct field access)
00:16:11,897 DEBUG [org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.ResponseStatusExceptionResolver] (http--192.168.1.20-8080-6) Resolving exception from handler [deliveries.manager.controller.AdminSignUpController@455901d2]: org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.support.HandlerMethodInvocationException: Failed to invoke handler method [public java.lang.String deliveries.manager.controller.AdminSignUpController.submitProduct(javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest,org.springframework.ui.Model,deliveries.manager.pagebean.AdminSignupBean,org.springframework.validation.BindingResult,org.springframework.ui.ModelMap)]; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: JSR-303 validated property 'password.confirmPassword' does not have a corresponding accessor for Spring data binding - check your DataBinder's configuration (bean property versus direct field access)
00:16:11,900 DEBUG [org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver] (http--192.168.1.20-8080-6) Resolving exception from handler [deliveries.manager.controller.AdminSignUpController@455901d2]: org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.support.HandlerMethodInvocationException: Failed to invoke handler method [public java.lang.String deliveries.manager.controller.AdminSignUpController.submitProduct(javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest,org.springframework.ui.Model,deliveries.manager.pagebean.AdminSignupBean,org.springframework.validation.BindingResult,org.springframework.ui.ModelMap)]; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: JSR-303 validated property 'password.confirmPassword' does not have a corresponding accessor for Spring data binding - check your DataBinder's configuration (bean property versus direct field access)
00:16:11,902 DEBUG [org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet] (http--192.168.1.20-8080-6) Could not complete request: org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.support.HandlerMethodInvocationException: Failed to invoke handler method [public java.lang.String deliveries.manager.controller.AdminSignUpController.submitProduct(javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest,org.springframework.ui.Model,deliveries.manager.pagebean.AdminSignupBean,org.springframework.validation.BindingResult,org.springframework.ui.ModelMap)]; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: JSR-303 validated property 'password.confirmPassword' does not have a corresponding accessor for Spring data binding - check your DataBinder's configuration (bean property versus direct field access)
        at org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.support.HandlerMethodInvoker.invokeHandlerMethod(HandlerMethodInvoker.java:181) [spring-web-3.0.4.RELEASE.jar:3.0.4.RELEASE]
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter.invokeHandlerMethod(AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter.java:427) [spring-webmvc-3.0.4.RELEASE.jar:3.0.4.RELEASE]

Here is the bean class:

@CompareStrings(propertyNames={"password", "confirmPassword"}, message="Password and Comfirm Password must be matched.")
public class AdminSignupBean {
   private String password = "";
        private String confirmPassword = "";
   private String emailAddress = "";
        private String firstName = "";
        private String lastName = "";
        private String gender = "M";
        private String loginName = "";
        private String address1 = "";
        private String address2 = "";
        private String suburb = "";
        private String state = "";
        private String postcode = "";
        private String phone = "";
...
<settings and getters>

Validator class:

public class CompareStringsValidator implements ConstraintValidator<CompareStrings, Object> {

    public enum StringComparisonMode {
        EQUAL, EQUAL_IGNORE_CASE, NOT_EQUAL, NOT_EQUAL_IGNORE_CASE
    }

    private String[] propertyNames;
    private StringComparisonMode comparisonMode;
    private boolean allowNull;

    @Override
    public void initialize(CompareStrings constraintAnnotation) {
        this.propertyNames = constraintAnnotation.propertyNames();
        this.comparisonMode = constraintAnnotation.matchMode();
        this.allowNull = constraintAnnotation.allowNull();
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isValid(Object target, ConstraintValidatorContext context) {
        boolean isValid = true;
        List<String> propertyValues = new ArrayList<String> (propertyNames.length);
        for(int i=0; i<propertyNames.length; i++) {
            String propertyValue = ConstraintValidatorHelper.getPropertyValue(String.class, propertyNames[i], target);
            if(propertyValue == null) {
                if(!allowNull) {
                    isValid = false;
                    break;
                }
            } else {
                propertyValues.add(propertyValue);
            }
        }

        if(isValid) {
            isValid = ConstraintValidatorHelper.isValid(propertyValues, comparisonMode);
        }

        if (!isValid) {
          /*
           * if custom message was provided, don't touch it, otherwise build the
           * default message
           */
          String message = context.getDefaultConstraintMessageTemplate();
          message = (message.isEmpty()) ?  ConstraintValidatorHelper.resolveMessage(propertyNames, comparisonMode) : message;

          context.disableDefaultConstraintViolation();
          ConstraintViolationBuilder violationBuilder = context.buildConstraintViolationWithTemplate(message);
          for (String propertyName : propertyNames) {
            NodeBuilderDefinedContext nbdc = violationBuilder.addNode(propertyName);
            nbdc.addConstraintViolation();
          }
        }    

        return isValid;
    }
}

Controller class:

public String submitProduct(HttpServletRequest req, Model model, 
          @ModelAttribute("adminsignup") @Valid final AdminSignupBean adminsignup,
                         BindingResult result, ModelMap map)
   {   
      UUID pbid=adminsignup.getPbid();
                logger.debug("====adminsignup:"+adminsignup.toString());

                if (result.hasErrors()) {
                    AdminSignupBean admin = products.get(pbid);
                    req.getSession().setAttribute("pbid", pbid);
                    BeanUtils.copyProperties(adminsignup, admin, new String[] {"pbid", "mpf", "password", "confirmPassword"});
                    map.addAttribute("adminsignupbean",admin);

                    return "adminsignup/createadmin";
                }
                Set<ConstraintViolation<AdminSignupBean>> violations 
                        = validatorFactory.getValidator().validate(adminsignup);
                for(ConstraintViolation<AdminSignupBean> violation : violations) {
                    logger.debug("=========Violation Message:- " + violation.getMessage());
                }
                if (!violations.isEmpty()) {
                    logger.debug("=====violations messages:"+violations.toString());
                    AdminSignupBean admin = products.get(pbid);
                    req.getSession().setAttribute("pbid", pbid);
                    BeanUtils.copyProperties(adminsignup, admin, new String[] {"pbid", "mpf", "password", "confirmPassword"});
                    map.addAttribute("adminsignupbean",admin);

                    return "adminsignup/createadmin";
                }

Any suggestion is very appreciated. Thanks Sam

Solution

This seems to me a problem of the SpringValidatorAdapter. It seems that this adapter post processes the constraint violations and expects that the violations match existing entity properties. This is not a requirement from the Bean Validation side. I can see that in your custom constraint validator in some cases you are building a custom error. Is this the case when the exception occurs?

I am not a Spring expert, but I think there are multiple ways to integrate Bean Validation in Spring, especially if you only need JSR 303. Have you for example looked at the LocalValidatorFactoryBean?