(Quick Reference)
Constraints Usage
Constraints provide Grails with a declarative DSL for defining validation rules, schema generation and CRUD generation meta data. For example, consider these constraints:
class User {
... static constraints = {
login size: 5..15, blank: false, unique: true
password size: 5..15, blank: false
email email: true, blank: false
age min: 18
}
}Refer to the user guide topic on
Constraints for more information.
Global Constraints
You can apply constraints globally inside
grails-app/conf/application.groovy as follows:
grails.gorm.default.constraints = {
'*'(nullable: true, size: 1..20)
}The wildcard signifies that the constraints apply to all properties. You can also define shared constraints:
grails.gorm.default.constraints = {
myShared(nullable: true, size: 1..20)
}That can be reused in your class:
class User {
... static constraints = {
login(shared: "myShared")
}
}Sharing Constraints
Global constraints are one way of sharing constraints between different classes, for example between a domain class and a command object. This is no longer the only way. Grails 2 introduces a new syntax for the
constraints block that allows you to reuse constraints directly from another class.
Let's say you have a domain class like so:
class User {
String firstName
String lastName
String passwordHash static constraints = {
firstName blank: false, nullable: false
lastName blank: false, nullable: false
passwordHash blank: false, nullable: false
}
}You then want to create a command object,
UserCommand, that shares some of the properties of the domain class and the corresponding constraints. You do this with the
importFrom() method:
class UserCommand {
String firstName
String lastName
String password
String confirmPassword static constraints = {
importFrom User password blank: false, nullable: false
confirmPassword blank: false, nullable: false
}
}This will import all the constraints from the
User domain class and apply them to
UserCommand. The import will ignore any constraints in the source class (
User) that don't have corresponding properties in the importing class (
UserCommand). In the above case, only the 'firstName' and 'lastName' constraints will be imported into
UserCommand.
If you want more control over which constraints are imported, use the
include and
exclude named arguments. Both of these accept a list of simple or regular expression strings that are matched against the property names in the source constraints. So for example, if you only wanted to import the 'lastName' constraint you would use:
…
static constraints = {
importFrom User, include: ["lastName"]
…
}or if you wanted all constraints that ended with 'Name':
…
static constraints = {
importFrom User, include: [/.*Name/]
…
}Of course,
exclude does the reverse, specifying which constraints should
not be imported.
Quick Reference
| Constraint | Description | Example |
|---|
| blank | Validates that a String value is not blank | login(blank:false) |
| creditCard | Validates that a String value is a valid credit card number | cardNumber(creditCard: true) |
| email | Validates that a String value is a valid email address. | homeEmail(email: true) |
| inList | Validates that a value is within a range or collection of constrained values. | name(inList: ["Joe", "Fred", "Bob"]) |
| matches | Validates that a String value matches a given regular expression. | login(matches: "[a-zA-Z]+") |
| max | Validates that a value does not exceed the given maximum value. | age(max: new Date()) price(max: 999F) |
| maxSize | Validates that a value's size does not exceed the given maximum value. | children(maxSize: 25) |
| min | Validates that a value does not fall below the given minimum value. | age(min: new Date()) price(min: 0F) |
| minSize | Validates that a value's size does not fall below the given minimum value. | children(minSize: 25) |
| notEqual | Validates that that a property is not equal to the specified value | login(notEqual: "Bob") |
| nullable | Allows a property to be set to null - defaults to false. | age(nullable: true) |
| range | Uses a Groovy range to ensure that a property's value occurs within a specified range | age(range: 18..65) |
| scale | Set to the desired scale for floating point numbers (i.e., the number of digits to the right of the decimal point). | salary(scale: 2) |
| size | Uses a Groovy range to restrict the size of a collection or number or the length of a String. | children(size: 5..15) |
| unique | Constrains a property as unique at the database level | login(unique: true) |
| url | Validates that a String value is a valid URL. | homePage(url: true) |
| validator | Adds custom validation to a field. | See documentation |
Scaffolding
Some constraints have no impact on persistence but customize the scaffolding. It's not usually good practice to include UI information in your domain, but it's a great convenience if you use Grails' scaffolding extensively.
| Constraint | Description |
|---|
| display | Boolean that determines whether the property is displayed in the scaffolding views. If true (the default), the property is displayed. |
| editable | Boolean that determines whether the property can be edited from the scaffolding views. If false, the associated form fields are displayed in read-only mode. |
| format | Specify a display format for types that accept one, such as dates. For example, 'yyyy-MM-dd'. |
| password | Boolean indicating whether this is property should be displayed with a password field. Only works on fields that would normally be displayed with a text field. |
| widget | Controls what widget is used to display the property. For example, 'textarea' will force the scaffolding to use a <textArea> tag. |
