I think what you want is to leave out the "required" validator, but to use the "minlength" validator with a value of 1. That should allow a blank, but not a String shorter than 1, and whitespace should be left out in the measurement. (I'm not positive as I don't have the source).
I think Erik's right. In any case, you won't get the mask validator to do it, since it only checks non-empty fields:
-------
from o.a.s.validator.FieldChecks:
public static boolean validateMask(Object bean,
ValidatorAction va, Field field,
ActionMessages errors,
HttpServletRequest request) { String mask = field.getVarValue("mask");
String value = null;
if (isString(bean)) {
value = (String) bean;
} else {
value = ValidatorUtils.getValueAsString(bean, field.getProperty());
} try {
if (!GenericValidator.isBlankOrNull(value)
&& !GenericValidator.matchRegexp(value, mask)) { errors.add(
field.getKey(),
Resources.getActionMessage(request, va, field)); return false;
} else {
return true;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
log.error(e.getMessage(), e);
}
return true;
}
---------
Joe Germuska [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://blog.germuska.com
"Narrow minds are weapons made for mass destruction" -The Ex
