hibernate unique key validation

Question

I have a field, say, user_name, that should be unique in a table.

What is the best way for validating it using Spring/Hibernate validation?

Answer 1

This code is based on the previous one implemented using EntityManager. In case anyone need to use Hibernate Session. Custom Annotation using Hibernate Session.
@UniqueKey.java

import java.lang.annotation.*;
import javax.validation.Constraint;
import javax.validation.Payload;

@Target({ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE, ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.METHOD})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Constraint(validatedBy = UniqueKeyValidator.class)
@Documented
public @interface UniqueKey {
    String columnName();
    Class className();
    String message() default "{UniqueKey.message}";
    Class[] groups() default {};
    Class[] payload() default {};
}

UnqieKeyValidator.java

import ch.qos.logback.classic.gaffer.PropertyUtil;
import org.hibernate.Criteria;
import org.hibernate.Session;
import org.hibernate.SessionFactory;
import org.hibernate.criterion.Restrictions;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Repository;
import org.springframework.transaction.annotation.Transactional;
import javax.validation.ConstraintValidator;
import javax.validation.ConstraintValidatorContext;
import java.beans.PropertyDescriptor;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
@Transactional
@Repository
public class UniqueKeyValidator implements ConstraintValidator {

    @Autowired
    private SessionFactory sessionFactory;

    public Session getSession() {
        return sessionFactory.getCurrentSession();
    }

    private String columnName;
    private Class entityClass;

    @Override
    public void initialize(UniqueKey constraintAnnotation) {
        this.columnNames = constraintAnnotation.columnNames();
        this.entityClass = constraintAnnotation.className();
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isValid(String value, ConstraintValidatorContext context) {
        Class entityClass = this.entityClass;
        System.out.println("class: " + entityClass.toString());
        Criteria criteria = getSession().createCriteria(entityClass);
        try {
                criteria.add(Restrictions.eq(this.columnName, value));
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return criteria.list().size()==0;
    }
}

Usage

@UniqueKey(columnNames="userName", className = UserEntity.class)
// @UniqueKey(columnNames="userName") // unique key