Parameterize regex patterns used for validation

[bglamadrid]

The PersonPojo class has two properties phone1 and phone2 that are annotated with a @Pattern. This means that whenever they have a value and are triggered for validation, they try to match specifically against this pattern: ^(((\\(\\+?[0-9]{3}\\))|(\\+?[0-9]{3})) ?)?[0-9]{3,4}[ -]?[0-9]{4}$ which may not be compatible with all phone numbers; I originally made it for numbers originating from Chile.

But most importantly, it is hard-coded, and if it doesn't match against certain phone numbers, it has to be changed in the .java class file.

Proposal

• All regex pattern that are used in annotations must be parameterized. If possible, using properties files.
• Additionally, the default regex could be improved to accept many more phone numbers formats/international support. Maybe such one regex exists and is somewhere to be found?

[bglamadrid]

Apparently, values used in annotations cannot be changed at runtime since they are compiled just like fields or methods.

So, well, Java Reflection can modify the value, here's an an answer that exemplifies this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14268981/modify-a-class-definitions-annotation-string-parameter-at-runtime

But there's still another risk. Regular expressions themselves also need to be compiled before testing them against any string.

Does the implementation behind @Pattern compile the regex and then reuse it (probably)? Or does it compile a new one every time it has to validate the value (unlikely)?

Maybe I should find another way to validate these values through regex pattern.