Javax validation on nested objects - not working

Question

In my Spring Boot project I have two DTO's which I'm trying to validate, LocationDto and BuildingDto. The LocationDto has a nested object of type BuildingDto.

These are my DTO's:

LocationDto

public class LocationDto {

  @NotNull(groups = { Existing.class })
  @Null(groups = { New.class })
  @Getter
  @Setter
  private Integer id;

  @NotNull(groups = { New.class, Existing.class })
  @Getter
  @Setter
  private String name;

  @NotNull(groups = { New.class, Existing.class, LocationGroup.class })
  @Getter
  @Setter
  private BuildingDto building;

  @NotNull(groups = { Existing.class })
  @Getter
  @Setter
  private Integer lockVersion;

}

BuildingDto

public class BuildingDto {

  @NotNull(groups = { Existing.class, LocationGroup.class })
  @Null(groups = { New.class })
  @Getter
  @Setter
  private Integer id;

  @NotNull(groups = { New.class, Existing.class })
  @Getter
  @Setter
  private String name;

  @NotNull(groups = { Existing.class })
  @Getter
  @Setter
  private List<LocationDto> locations;

  @NotNull(groups = { Existing.class })
  @Getter
  @Setter
  private Integer lockVersion;

}

Currently, I can validate in my LocationDto that the properties name and building are not null, but I can't validate the presence of the property id which is inside building.

If I use the @Valid annotation on the building property, it would validate all of its fields, but for this case I only want to validate its id.

How could that be done using javax validation?

This is my controller:

@PostMapping
public LocationDto createLocation(@Validated({ New.class, LocationGroup.class }) @RequestBody LocationDto location) {
  // save entity here...
}

This is a correct request body: (should not throw validation errors)

{
  "name": "Room 44",
  "building": {
    "id": 1
  }
}

This is an incorrect request body: (must throw validation errors because the building id is missing)

{
  "name": "Room 44",
  "building": { }
}

Answer 1

Just try adding @valid to collection. it would be working as per reference hibernate

  @Getter
  @Setter
  @Valid
  @NotNull(groups = { Existing.class })
  private List<LocationDto> locations;