Spring Rest Controller: how to selectively switch off validation

Question

In my controller I have a method for creating an entity

import javax.validation.Valid;
...
@RestController
public class Controller {

  @RequestMapping(metho         


        

Answer 1

Short answer: Use Validation Groups:

@NotEmpty(groups = SomeCriteria.class)
private String field1;

And reference your intended group in method handler parameters:

public ResponseEntity<?> create(@Validated(SomeCriteria.class) @RequestBody RequestDTO requestDTO)

In the above example, validations in the SomeCriteria group will be applied and others going to be ignored. Usually, these validation groups are defined as empty interfaces:

public interface SomeCriteria {}

You can read more about these group constraints in Hibernate Validator documentation.