Thanks Niall for the suggestions and feedback.

Both are good solutions, and I'm looking into both of them.

Ed


-----Original Message-----
From: Niall Pemberton [mailto:niall.pemberton@(protected)]
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 2:54 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: Re: Action name vs. attribute

On 1/4/07, Edward Song <esong@(protected):
> Hi all,
>
> STRUTS 1.2
>
> Got a quick question on the Action "name" and "attribute" properties
>
> name - The name of the form bean associated with this action. This
> value must be the name attribute from one of the form-bean elements.
> This attribute is optional and has no value.
>
> attribute - The name of the request-or session-scope attribute under
> which the form bean for this action can be accessed. A value is
> allowed here only if there is a form bean specified in the name
> attribute. This attribute is optional and has no default value. If
> both this attribute and the name attribute contain a value, this attribute
will take precedence.
>
> I have a generic form bean (SearchObjectForm), that I'd like to reuse
> amongst many actions, along with its validation.
>
> <form-bean name="SearchObjectForm"
> type="org.apache.struts.validator.DynaValidatorForm">
>   <!-- properties left out for email --> </form-bean>
>
> For the form bean above...I have these two actions defined. (Defs are
> simplified for illustration)
>
> <action path="/admin/SearchUsers" type="com.SearchUsers" scope="session"
> attribute="SearchUsersForm" name="SearchObjectForm" validate="true"
> input="/WEB-INF/jsps/searchUsers.jsp">
> <forward name="success"
> path="/WEB-INF/jsps/pages/admin/searchUsers.jsp"/>
> </action>
>
> <action path="/admin/SearchSubs" type="com.SearchSubs" scope="session"
> attribute="SearchSubsForm" name="SearchObjectForm" validate="true"
> input="/WEB-INF/jsps/searchSubs.jsp">
> <forward name="success"
> path="/WEB-INF/jsps/pages/admin/searchSubs.jsp"/>
> </action>
>
> Now when I execute these actions, the validation that is called uses
> the validation key "SearchUsersForm" or "SearchSubsForm", and upon not
> finding those form beans, actually does not validate anything.
>
> My expectations were to have it use the "name" property of the action
> to access the form bean and necessary validation, and then use the
> attribute to store the Form Bean within the request or session.
> Thereby, reusing the form bean defintion and validation and having the
> ability to access the form with the attribute name, within the action.
>
> However, as this is not the case, I set the validation key to the form
> name and call validate in the action (Not what I want to do). Is
> there another way to reuse the form bean defintion and its validation,
> and have Struts automatically store the form into the request or
> session using the attribute field?
>
> Any guidance, on how to more effectively approach this problem would
> be appreciated Thanks in advance.

One solution would be to create your own DynaValidatorForm implementation
and override the getValidationKey() method to use the "name" rather than
attribute. Personally I haven't actually ever used the "attribute"
configuration option and so name == attribute is always true for me so
whether there are other side effects I'm not sure - but give it a go and see
if it works for you:

public class MyDynaValidatorForm extends DynaValidatorForm {
    public String getValidationKey(ActionMapping mapping,
                      HttpServletRequest request) {

    return mapping.getName();
  }
}

Another solution would be to upgrade to the latest Validator version
(1.3.1) - from Validator 1.2.0 onwards there is an "extends" attribute where
rules can inherit. That way you could re-use rules for one form under a
different name - which means you wouldn't have to duplicate them in you
validation.xml, so you could have something like the
following:

    <form name="SearchObjectForm">
       ...
    </form>

    <form name="SearchSubsForm" extends="SearchObjectForm">
       ...
    </form>

http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/validator/
http://wiki.apache.org/jakarta-commons/ValidatorVersion120

The only thing about upgrading to Validator 1.3.1 is that you would need to
use the new DTD and the arg0-arg3 elements have been removed and would need
replacing with <arg> elements. Otherwise Validator
1.3.1 is compatible with Struts 1.2.9

Niall

> Ed

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