How to get query parameter name from ConstraintViolationException

Ihor M. :

I have a service method:

 @GetMapping(path = "/api/some/path", produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
public ResponseEntity<?> getWhatever(@RequestParam(value = "page-number", defaultValue = "0") @Min(0) Integer pageNumber, ...

If the caller of an API doesn't submit a proper value for page-number query parameter, javax.ConstraintViolationexception is being raised. The message of the exception would read smth like:

getWhatever.pageNumber must be equal or greater than 0

In the response body, I would like to have this message instead:

page-number must be equal or greater than 0

I want my message to have the name of a query parameter, not the name of the argument. IMHO, including the name of the argument is exposing the implementation details.

The problem is, I cannot find an object that is carrying query parameter name. Seems like the ConstraintViolationException doesn't have it.

I am running my app in spring-boot.

Any help would be appreciated.

P.S.: I have been to the other similar threads that claim to solve the problem, none of them actually do in reality.

Ihor M. :

Here is how I made it work in spring-boot 2.0.3:

I had to override and disable ValidationAutoConfiguration in spring-boot:

import org.springframework.boot.validation.MessageInterpolatorFactory;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Lazy;
import org.springframework.core.env.Environment;
import org.springframework.validation.beanvalidation.LocalValidatorFactoryBean;
import org.springframework.validation.beanvalidation.MethodValidationPostProcessor;

import javax.validation.Validator;

@Configuration
public class ValidationConfiguration {
    public ValidationConfiguration() {
    }

    @Bean
    public static LocalValidatorFactoryBean validator() {
        LocalValidatorFactoryBean factoryBean = new LocalValidatorFactoryBean();
        factoryBean.setParameterNameDiscoverer(new CustomParamNamesDiscoverer());
        MessageInterpolatorFactory interpolatorFactory = new MessageInterpolatorFactory();
        factoryBean.setMessageInterpolator(interpolatorFactory.getObject());
        return factoryBean;
    }

    @Bean
    public static MethodValidationPostProcessor methodValidationPostProcessor(Environment environment, @Lazy Validator validator) {
        MethodValidationPostProcessor processor = new MethodValidationPostProcessor();
        boolean proxyTargetClass = (Boolean) environment.getProperty("spring.aop.proxy-target-class", Boolean.class, true);
        processor.setProxyTargetClass(proxyTargetClass);
        processor.setValidator(validator);
        return processor;
    }
}

CustomParamNamesDiscoverer sits in the same package and it is a pretty much a copy-paste of DefaultParameterNameDiscoverer, spring-boot's default implementation of param name discoverer:

import org.springframework.core.*;
import org.springframework.util.ClassUtils;

public class CustomParameterNameDiscoverer extends PrioritizedParameterNameDiscoverer {
    private static final boolean kotlinPresent = ClassUtils.isPresent("kotlin.Unit", CustomParameterNameDiscoverer.class.getClassLoader());

    public CustomParameterNameDiscoverer() {
        if (kotlinPresent) {
            this.addDiscoverer(new KotlinReflectionParameterNameDiscoverer());
        }

        this.addDiscoverer(new ReqParamNamesDiscoverer());
        this.addDiscoverer(new StandardReflectionParameterNameDiscoverer());
        this.addDiscoverer(new LocalVariableTableParameterNameDiscoverer());
    }
}

I wanted it to remain pretty much intact (you can see even kotlin checks in there) with the only addition: I am adding an instance of ReqParamNamesDiscoverer to the linked lists of discoverers. Note that the order of addition does matter here.

Here is the source code:

import com.google.common.base.Strings;
import org.springframework.core.ParameterNameDiscoverer;
import org.springframework.lang.Nullable;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;

import java.lang.reflect.Constructor;
import java.lang.reflect.Executable;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
import java.lang.reflect.Parameter;

public class ReqParamNamesDiscoverer implements ParameterNameDiscoverer {

    public ReqParamNamesDiscoverer() {
    }

    @Override
    @Nullable
    public String[] getParameterNames(Method method) {
        return doGetParameterNames(method);
    }

    @Override
    @Nullable
    public String[] getParameterNames(Constructor<?> constructor) {
        return doGetParameterNames(constructor);
    }

    @Nullable
    private static String[] doGetParameterNames(Executable executable) {
        Parameter[] parameters = executable.getParameters();
        String[] parameterNames = new String[parameters.length];
        for (int i = 0; i < parameters.length; ++i) {
            Parameter param = parameters[i];
            if (!param.isNamePresent()) {
                return null;
            }
            String paramName = param.getName();
            if (param.isAnnotationPresent(RequestParam.class)) {
                RequestParam requestParamAnnotation = param.getAnnotation(RequestParam.class);
                if (!Strings.isNullOrEmpty(requestParamAnnotation.value())) {
                    paramName = requestParamAnnotation.value();
                }
            }
            parameterNames[i] = paramName;
        }
        return parameterNames;
    }
}

If parameter is annotated with RequestParam annotation, I am retrieving the value attribute and return it as a parameter name.

The next thing was disabling auto validation config, somehow, it doesn't work without it. This annotation does the trick though: @SpringBootApplication(exclude = {ValidationAutoConfiguration.class})

Also, you need to have a custom handler for your ConstraintValidationException :

    @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST)
    @ExceptionHandler(ConstraintViolationException.class)
    public ErrorDTO handleConstraintViolationException(ConstraintViolationException ex) {
        Map<String, Collection<String>> errors = new LinkedHashMap<>();
        ex.getConstraintViolations().forEach(constraintViolation -> {
            String queryParamPath = constraintViolation.getPropertyPath().toString();
            log.debug("queryParamPath = {}", queryParamPath);
            String queryParam = queryParamPath.contains(".") ?
                    queryParamPath.substring(queryParamPath.indexOf(".") + 1) :
                    queryParamPath;
            String errorMessage = constraintViolation.getMessage();
            Collection<String> perQueryParamErrors = errors.getOrDefault(queryParam, new ArrayList<>());
            perQueryParamErrors.add(errorMessage);
            errors.put(queryParam, perQueryParamErrors);
        });
        return validationException(new ValidationException("queryParameter", errors));
    }

ValidationException stuff is my custom way of dealing with validation errors, in a nutshell, it produces an error DTO, which will be serialized into JSON with all the validation error messages.