Eddie:
Thanks for the "enlightenment"! I think I understand what you're saying
about a contract.
With Struts 1.0, whenever we needed to pre-populate a form bean, our
actions would usually instantiate the form bean instead of letting Struts do
it. That way we could pre-populate right there in the action before
forwarding to the JSP. This was option was available since we weren't using
dyna forms. Everything was done in a single action class.
However, this is really a bad practice. Instantiation of the form beans
should be left to Struts. Therefore, whenever we encounter a situation
where we need to pre-populate a form bean, we should create a second action
who's sole responsibility is to handle pre-population. This second action
would be forwarded to by the first action. For the second action, Struts
will create the form bean as specified in the struts config file -- with
validate usually set to false.
I did figure out to have the action instantiate a form bean based on a
dyna form declaration. Specifically, I could use code similar to the
following:
dynaForm = (DynaValidatorForm)
DynaActionFormClass.createDynaActionFormClass("employeeForm").newInstance();
dynaForm.set("name", "Eddie");
But again, this is bad practice. As a matter of fact, when I was reading
the Javadocs for the "DynaActionFormClass", I saw the comment:
"NOTE - This class is only used in the internal implementation
of dynamic action form beans. Applications never need to consult
this documentation."
That's when I first became suspicious that I was doing something wrong
and decided to consult the Struts Users mailing list.
Thanks again,
JOHN
-----Original Message-----
From: Eddie Bush [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 2:20 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: Re: HELP!: Pre-populating A DynaValidatorForm in Struts 1.1 B2
John,
What you need to do is pre-face the page with a "populate" action. This
action (see comment below) casts the form to a DynaValidatorForm and
then calls form.set("property", value) for each property you need to
set. Once this is done, you just forward to the JSP. This works :-)
If it doesn't work for you, it's a mistake or a bug. Let us know if
you're unable to get it working still ...
Hohlen, John wrote:
>Does anyone know how to instantiate a "DynaValidatorForm" declared in the
>"validation.xml" file within Java code?
>
> <formset>
> <form name="employeeForm">
> <field property="emailAddress"
> depends="required,email">
> <arg0 key="general.emailAddress"/>
> </field>
> <field property="anniversaryDate"
> depends="required,date">
> <arg0 key="general.anniversaryDate"/>
> <var>
> <var-name>datePatternStrict</var-name>
> <var-value>MM/dd/yyyy</var-value>
> </var>
> </field>
> </form>
> </formset>
>
>More specifically, I want this form, used by my JSP, to contain
>pre-populated data from the database. Therefore, it is desired to have my
>action to instantiate the form bean and pre-populate it -- versus letting
>the Struts framework create one with default values.
>
No, no. Actions/Forms have a contract -- the form *will* be created.
You should not take this upon yourself. Expect it to be there -- if it
is not NPE and fail-fast (and submit a bug report!).
>In Struts 1.0, I just
>did the following in my action:
>
> EmployeeForm employeeForm = new EmployeeForm();
>
>But this won't work using dyna forms in Struts 1.1 since there is no
>"EmployeeForm" Java class.
>
>Thanks!
>
--
Eddie Bush
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