But, can the Validator be called/used from within the action class? For example, you need to extend your ActionForm to ValidatorForm/ValidatorActionForm in order to use the Validator. Could the same code be used to create a ValidatorAction that had a validate method that could be called within classes that extended it to take advantage of the Validator's validation simplicity.
The only reason why I mention this whole scenario has to do with organizing and centralizing ones access to their "logic" code. For example, I have a jsp form that has drop downs in it that are populated by collections from the ValidatorActionForm. Now, if I have a validation failure and my input forwards back to the jsp then the page explodes because the collections are empty. So, what I need to do is populate the collections in the ValidatorActionForm again. I can do this by overriding the validate method from within my ValidatorActionForm and make a call to super.validate(mapping,request) in order to perform the neccessary Validator validation. Then I can check to see if the ActionErrors object generated by the super.validate method is empty and call my "business logic" classes to populate the collections in my form before it goes back to the jsp with the errors. My feeling about this whole scenario is that I now have placed some calls to the "business logic" in my ValidatorActionForm. This creates more maintenance when having to update code. Wouldn't it be simpler to have validation happening in the Action class so that if you have to access the "business logic" that you can do so without decentralizing that code. I just think it would be nice to allow for a validation using Validator to exist in the/a base Action class that can be extended. In summary this is what it seems to me should be the functional purpose of each: ActionForms - Pass form data to the Action with an option to validate (maybe). No logic interaction. Currently we are forced to do this in many cases. Action - Validate data and perform business logic interaction. Final question, couldn't we whip up an Action class that takes advantage of the Validators convenience and access it from an Action class instead of a ActionForm? Brandon Goodin Phase Web and Multimedia P (406) 862-2245 F (406) 862-0354 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.phase.ws -----Original Message----- From: Gemes Tibor [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 1:13 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: Why not an Action Based Validator? 2003. janu�r 15. 09:12 d�tummal Phase Web and Multimedia ezt �rtad: > No, that is different. That has to do with using the form bean name or the > action 'mapping'. I am talking about having a validate method in the action > class rather than the ActionForm class. Sorry, just didn't read the end of the mail. I think that you can extend the action in the following way: public class BaseAction extends Action { ActionForward execute(...) { ActionErrors errors = validate(...); if (errors != null && !errors.empty()) { saveErrors(request, errors); String input = mapping.getInput(); if (input != null) return new ActionForward(input); else // return sg, thow sg, or like } return executeOnValidatedInput(...); } ActionErrors validate(...) { // override this if you need validate in your action return null; } ActionForward executeOnValidatedInput(...) { // this is what you need to override in your actions. return null; } } Tib -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
