John,
This is very good ...
Please bear with me for a final bit of clarification.
I neglected to explain that I had already created what you call the
"PopulatePersonAction" in your example and also set up the struts-config as
you suggested.
I have the equivalent of this:
<form-beans>
<form-bean name="personalDetailsForm" type="com.foo.PersonalDetailsForm"
/>
</form-beans>
<action path="/PersonForm" type="com.foo.PopulatePersonAction"
name="personalDetailsForm" scope="request" validate="true"
input="/pages/PersonalDetails.jsp">
<forward name="success" path="/pages/TheNextPageToCall.jsp" />
</action>
Note that the value assigned to the "input" parameter is
"/pages/PersonalDetails.jsp".
In my PersonalDetails.jsp the action in the <html:form> tag is
PopulatePersonAction.
When I initially call PersonalDetails.jsp, there is already a validUser bean
in the session scope, representing the current, logged-in user. On first
being displayed, I want the fields of PersonalDetails.jsp to be populated
with data from the validUser bean. Say I have an emailAddress field that I
populate, like this: <html:text name="validUser" property="emailAddress"
size="20" />.
Let's say the user enters some invalid data into the email address field and
then clicks the submit button.
The controller calls the personalDetailsForm and executes its validate()
method, which fails. Because of the failure, the controller then calls
PersonalDetails.jsp -- because it is the value in the "input" parameter for
the /PersonForm action defined in struts-config.
The newly called PersonalDetails.jsp now has access to the
PersonalDetailsForm form bean containing the data entered by the user.
HOWEVER, HOW WILL THE NEWLY CALLED PersonalDetails.jsp POPULATE THE
emailAddress FIELD WITH THE VALUE THAT THE USER ENTERED?
Won't it just re-display the value from the validUser bean? Because that's
how it's defined in the page, i.e., <html:text name="validUser"
property="emailAddress" size="20" />.
Thanks,
Frank.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John McGrath" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Struts Users Mailing List'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 10:19 PM
Subject: RE: Struts starter
> i'm a relative newcomer myself, but i think the part you're missing is
> an Action class.
>
> Put an entry in struts-config something like this:
>
> <action path="/PersonForm" type="com.foo.PopulatePersonAction"
> name="PersonalDetailsForm" scope="request" validate="true">
> <forward name="success" path="/pages/PersonalDetails.jsp" />
> </action>
>
> Then write a PopulatePersonAction (or whatever) class that extends the
> struts Action class. When you hit /PersonForm.do, PopulatePersonAction
> can hit a datastore, create a DTO (validUser or whatever), and transfer
> the values from your DTO to the form (probably using the apache
> BeanUtils classes). When the Action class forwards to a mapping
> ('success'), the struts tags in the form will be able to access the bean
> that was created by the Action class.
>
> likewise, if you have the form submitting to a struts-config entry that
> maps to another Action class, the validate method will be called before
> the 'execute' method of the action mapped to the *.do that form is
> submitting to. because the validate method is called after the form bean
> has been populated, but before the Action class' 'execute' method has
> been called, when the validate method forwards back to the input form
> (the default behavior on failure to validate), i think the user's newly
> submitted fields should be prepopulated, so long as you used the
> <html:form...> tags for the form.
>
> This seemed unnecessarily complicated to me when i started using struts,
> but we soon found that if we kept things suitably atomic, the extra
> effort up front quickly paid of in code reusability (we reuse our action
> classes like mad) and standardization. good luck!
>
> john
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Burns [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 4:15 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Struts starter
>
>
> Hi,
> I'm in the middle of working with my first application using Struts and
> desperately need some help. I've read nearly all of Ted Husted's "Struts
> In Action" book and browsed the mailing list archives but have not found
> a solution for what I want to do. I mention this to let you know that I
> have already tried hard, unsuccessfully, to find an answer to what seems
> to me to be a basic requirement. However, I may be struggling with my
> own misunderstanding!
>
> HERE'S THE BACKGROUND
>
> I have a session bean (validUser) and I want to use its properties to
> initially populate a "PersonalDetails" form. Then I want to use the
> validate() method of the related ActionForm (PersonalDetailsForm) to
> check the newly submitted details and, if failing validation, redisplay
> them in the PersonalDetails form, so that the user can correct them.
>
> HERE'S THE QUESTION:
>
> Where and how do I "initialize" (prepopulate) the form fields with the
> properties from the validUser bean, but then enable them to be populated
> with the information entered by the user when the form fails validation?
>
> HERE'S WHAT I'VE TRIED
>
> I've tried using <html:text ...> tags in the form, but they only seem to
> accept values from either the default form bean or from a specified bean
> -- so that seems only to a give a single source for populating the
> fields.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Frank.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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