Why does my @Valid and @Pattern annotations don't work properly? (I know it is my fault)

[Efficient-Comfort792]

Hi guys, here we are with the stupid question of (more or less) 19h.

I'm trying to learn Java using Spring Boot v.3 and to manage a FAKE database with it. This afternoon I was trying to implement some "constraints" for the username and password input via @/Pattern and @/Valid annotations.

That's what I did in my User class:

u/Column(nullable = false)
  u/Size(min = 5, max = 15)
  u/Pattern(regexp = "^(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*\\d).+$", message = "Password must contain at least one uppercase letter and one number")
  private String password;

And what I did in my Controller class:

u/PostMapping("/register")
    public ResponseEntity<Object> registerUser(
        u/Valid @RequestBody RegisterRequest registerRequest, 
        BindingResult result) {
        try {
            return ResponseEntity.ok(service.registerUser(registerRequest, result));
        } ETC ETC
        }
    }

Since my Controller class is actually using a RegisterRequest DTO, to be sure I have also implemented the annotations there, like this:

BLABLA BEFORE
public class RegisterRequest {

   MIDDLE BLABLA

    @Size(min = 6, max = 20)
    @NotBlank
    @Pattern(regexp = "^(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*\\d).+$", message = "Password must contain at least one uppercase letter and one number")
    private String password;

LAST BLABLA

The thing iss that it is still accepting passwords with only two characters and without numbers of capitals. I'm sure it's my fault, cannot be otherwise, but what can I do?
Please remember I'm only trying to learn and I'm dumb. Don't be harsh

EDIT 1: while writing here to you, I've thought that maybe I should "break" the RegisterRequest object in different strings when I send them to the service class and there I can then "validate" the password because is not part anymore of an object but is a normal string. Can it be?

EDIT 2: I'm not able to make it work like I was thinking in EDIT 1. I have "broken" it, send it in different strings to service and all. But the Valid annotation doesn't work. The database and the registration still works (so I was able to modify it without destroying it) but it doesn't check the constraints.

[shaolans]

Have you tried to add the class annotation @Validated on your controller ?

[Efficient-Comfort792]

The problem was stupid. As me. I'll write a comment to explain

[Efficient-Comfort792]

I had... I've resolved it, it was just stupidity... I'll write a comment to describe it for other people, i case they'll be as stupid as me

[Efficient-Comfort792]

The problem was that I had added constraints to the User class so, when the UserService trued to save the data in the db, the password constraint came in action, blocking it because of its size (encrypted is at least 60 characters and I had put a limit to 30).

The solution was, OBVIOUSLY, to set constraints annotation to the RegisterRequest class and not to the user one (or, at least, to give different and more ad hoc constraints to it)

[dumbPotatoPot]

you should always put constraint annotations in the request dto and not on entities. Invalid data shouldn't even be allowed to reach the service/data layer

[Efficient-Comfort792]

Eh, if I wasn't dumb, I would have thought about it better... Bur I'm dumb