Validator not called due to null value

Question

Hello everyone,
I'm creating a custom component that holds children i.e. an HtmlSelectOneMenu and HtmlInputText.
The custom component class is UICombo and I want to attach a Validator to this component that performs a check on the values of the children in this case the values of the select and input fields.
public class ComboValidator implements Validator {
    static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(ComboValidator.class);
    public void validate(FacesContext context, UIComponent component, Object value) {
        log.debug("validate() - value:" + value);
}Here's the hitch. ComboValidator is never called because the submitted value to the UICombo is of course null.
Can you think of any workarounds? I'd rather not use a third idden component with an attached validator method binding since I'd rather keep the combo component and its validator self-contained.
The assumption that validators should not be called when the input is null seems problematic imo.

Answer 1

How about implementing validate() method for the custom component?