Bug in BeanUtils.populate ?

[Alec Bau <Al...@msdw.com>]

To fight problem with image buttons (reported earlier) I was trying to use form suffix
(ActionMapping.getFormSuffix) support to map <name>.x/y parameters. I think there's a
bug in BeanUtils.populate(bean, prefix, suffix, request) method that's called from
ActionServlet.processActionForm method.

Here's the abstract from BeanUtils.populate:

 // Build a list of relevant request parameters from this request
 Hashtable properties = new Hashtable();
 Enumeration names = request.getParameterNames();
 while (names.hasMoreElements()) {
     String name = (String) names.nextElement();
     if (prefix != null) {
        if (!name.startsWith(prefix))
           continue;
        name = name.substring(0, prefix.length());
     }
     if (suffix != null) {
        if (!name.endsWith(suffix))
           continue;
        name = name.substring(0, name.length() - suffix.length());
     }
     properties.put(name, request.getParameterValues(name));
 }

For non null suffix or prefix  last line stores null as a value since request parameter
value couldn't be found for the name that's already stripped of prefix and/or suffix.
Later because of that BeanUtils.populate(bean, properties) skips parameter processing
altogether. Perhaps loop body should be changed to something like that:

     String name = (String) names.nextElement();
     String striped = name;
     if (prefix != null) {
        if (!name.startsWith(prefix))
           continue;
        striped = name.substring(0, prefix.length());
     }
     if (suffix != null) {
        if (!name.endsWith(suffix))
           continue;
        striped = name.substring(0, name.length() - suffix.length());
     }
     properties.put(striped, request.getParameterValues(name));

Thanks.