Constraint Validator not invoked for class parameter

Question

I have a custom class with type parameters and it is not being invoked by constraint validator. Is there a way to invoke the validator for type parameters?

SpringController.java

@ResponseBody
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public EntityCollection<MyEntity> processData(
         @Valid @RequestBody EntityCollection<MyEntity> entityRequestSet
        , BindingResult bindingResult) throws Exception {
    if(bindingResult.hasErrors()) 
    {
        // Problem here is that bindingResult has no errors, even though MyEntity 
        // has nulls in it. If I use just MyEntity as RequestBody instead of 
        // EntityCollection<MyEntity>,  then the bindingResult has errors in it 
        // for fields with nulls
        MethodParameter parameter = new MethodParameter(this.getClass()
                .getMethod(new Object(){}.getClass().getEnclosingMethod().getName(), 
                EntityCollection.class, BindingResult.class), 0);
        throw new MethodArgumentNotValidException(parameter, bindingResult);
    }
    return null;
}

EntityCollection.java

public class EntityCollection<MyEntity> extends GenericCollectionEntity<MyEntity> {

  public EntityCollection() {
      super();
  }

  public EntityCollection(
          Collection<MyEntity> entities) {
      super(entities);
  }

}

GenericCollectionEntity.java

public abstract class GenericCollectionEntity<T> implements Serializable {

  private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

  public GenericCollectionEntity() {
      super();
  }

  public GenericCollectionEntity(Collection<T> entities) {
      super();
      this.entities = entities;
  }

  protected Collection<T> entities;

  public Collection<T> getEntities() {
      return entities;
  }

  public void setEntities(Collection<T> entities) {
      this.entities = entities;
  } 
}

MyEntity.java

@Entity
public class MyEntity implements Serializable {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

@Valid
@EmbeddedId
private EntityKey key;

  // getters & setters

}

EntityKey.java

@Embeddable
public class EntityKey implements Serializable {

  private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

  @NotNull
  @Column(name = "ID")
  private String id;
  // ommitted other fields
  //getters & setters
}

Answer 1

My bad, I couldn't apply my thinking on the basics. I just added @Valid to the field in abstract entity and it started validating the collection.

GenericCollectionEntity.java

@Valid
protected Collection<T> entities;