Yep. It wasnt convienient for me to validate in the form either, so I just do it in the action instead. Most of my CRUD actions are inheriting from an abstract class , one of the abstract methods being a validate method that is called, and of course the abstract class checks if it returned any errors and forwards back to the page if so.
-----Original Message----- From: Joe Germuska [mailto:Joe@;Germuska.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 03:24 To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: RE: Inner classes At 11:54 AM -0700 2002/10/23, Wendy Smoak wrote: >Joe wrote: >> There's >> no strict reason why you need to validate action forms with the >> validate() method; it's just a convenience. > >Can you say more about this? I'm finding that I _can't_ use the validate() >method, because I need to allow my users to leave the main form and go off >to resolution, then come back to the main form. It's only when they click >the "finish" button that I want to do the validation. Well, here's what Struts does, more or less... Gets the user request Looks up an ActionMapping for it If the ActionMapping has an ActionForm specified, it instantiates (or retrieves from session scope) the ActionForm and populates it based on the request. If the ActionMapping specifies validate, Struts calls the ActionForm's validate method. If validate returns a non-zero-length ActionErrors object, Struts forwards control to the ActionMapping's specified "input" path rather than forwarding control to the action class associated with the mapping. So, given all of that, you could do the same stuff at other points in the process. My apps tend not to have really complicated forms, and besides, I've taken to using DynaActionForms, which means I don't even have to write a form bean unless I want to put in a validate method. Since I'm already writing an action, I just do that in my action instead of subclassing DynaActionForm. It's just a matter of style. So, early in my action, I call some method which looks at the ActionForm which is passed in to execute(), validates it, and if necessary, creates an ActionErrors object. In my action, I see if that ActionErrors object has 1 or more messages, and if so, I call "mapping.findForward(...)" passing the name of a forward which I know is suitable for re-presenting the input form to the user. Does that make sense? Basically, there's more than one way to do most everything in Struts, which is part of why so many people find it useful... Joe -- -- * Joe Germuska { [EMAIL PROTECTED] } "It's pitiful, sometimes, if they've got it bad. Their eyes get glazed, they go white, their hands tremble.... As I watch them I often feel that a dope peddler is a gentleman compared with the man who sells records." --Sam Goody, 1956 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:struts-user-unsubscribe@;jakarta.apache.org> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:struts-user-help@;jakarta.apache.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:struts-user-unsubscribe@;jakarta.apache.org> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:struts-user-help@;jakarta.apache.org>
