I agree on letting struts do it's job where available, that's why I thought my code snippet below was a little goofy. My only question about your suggestions is in solution 2 you mention having a second action. You're not suggesting action chaining are you? If not, how do you hook into second action "the struts way"? Or would this be one place where action chaining is accepted?
Thanks again!
--m
Robert Taylor wrote:
I would say the solution depends on the process.
If the process of going from pageA to pageB to ... pageN, is a wizard style process then you might think of placing all your data in the same form and putting the form in session scope.
If you don't want to put your form in session scope AND the data you capture along the way can be stored in hidden fields, then you could also use a single form placed in request scope.
If the process is somewhat disjoint and you have separate forms,
then is the data to be rendered in pageB unique to the user? Is
it static data? If so, place that data in ServletContext and
make it available to all users and you don't need a set up action
for pageB.
If the data IS unique to the user AND you have separate forms then
in this situation, I would still let Struts perform the form creation.
-Soluation 1:
Place the data retrieved from processing pageA in request scope
and forward to the page and tell the particular html component to look
for the data in the request under some defined name.
-Solution 2: Insert and additional preparation action in between the action processing
pageA and pageB; call it ShowPageB or something of the sort. ShowPageB
action would access the data out of request scope and populate the form
defined for pageB and forward to pageB.
There are so many ways to approach this solution. It's subjective to the
complexity of the process. I wouldn't stress over the fact of having to place data in the request scope temporarily.
What I would stress is let Struts do its job where possible - like creating action forms.
robert
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Thompson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 11:09 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: Action Form Design Question
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//I've been having issues with posting to this list, so I apologize if this is a repost.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
That hits on some points, I did read that thread earlier this week(I'll even read it again), and I'm starting to agree on not shoving everything in the ActionForm, but I don't recall it hitting on an Action needing one form for input and one form for output. If I totally ignore it, the second page will render, but what if I need my html form in the second JSP(JSPB) to be prepopulated with the results of the processing in ActionA?
Scenario:
I have jspA that is rendered with ActionFormA. Now user submits that data to ActionA. ActionA recieves an ActionFormA as its input form in execute. Now ActionA needs to forward to jspB which expectes an ActionFormB, what is the cleanest way to handle this in struts(see code below). Do struts users run across this case often or do I need to rethink my Action/Form design?
--m
Robert Taylor wrote:
This was discussed earlier this week.1101.html
Some solutions are addressed here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/struts-user%40jakarta.apache.org/msg8
robertapproach of
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Thompson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 6:10 PM To: struts-user Subject: Action Form Design Question
I've hit a stumbling block and I'm not quite sure how to work around it. I've written struts apps in the past and I've taken the
stop shopputting everything in the ActionForm so that the jsp has a one
happens whenfor all it's display needs. So where I've hit an issue is when say I have jsp A that is rendered with form A. When user submits data to action A, the ActionForm pushed to execute is form A. What
form B?I need to forward from action A to jsp B which is rendered with
I need to populate an ActionForm B to send to jsp B, but I don't have one. Is it "normal" to create a form of a different type in your Action? So essentially the code would look something like:
public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception
{
FormA inputForm = (FormA)form;
Result result = doSomeCrunchingOnDataSubmittedViaFormA(inputForm);
FormB outputForm = getInstanceOfFormB(mapping, request); //this would stash in request/session also
populateFormBWithResults(outputForm, result);
return mapping.findForward("success"); }
getInstanceOfFormB is a little hazy, but I did notice a method in RequestUtils that might help. Seems like this might be breaking some struts abstractions by knowing what form to create etc.
Is this the correct way to approach this or should I think about a redesign of my forms and actions? Thanks in advance!
--m
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
