Struts + Hibernate: A few newbie questions about how to get this right?

[Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen <tr...@biobase.dk>]

I have spent quite some time working with creating a new web interface 
on top of an existing database.  As we want to eventually change the 
schema we have decided to put an abstraction layer on top of it, which I 
am in the process of modelling as Hibernate beans, where Ihave just 
started dealing with the process of updating information in these 
persisted beans (previously was read-only), and presenting them with 
bean:* and the display taglib.

I have previously written a search interface accessing the database 
directly (due to some very complicated where-clauses) using Struts in 
order to gather the user preferences for refining the search, which has 
worked well for quite a while.  So I am familiar with the basic concept 
of using a form bean to store the information, and Struts taglibs for 
creating web-forms to alter this information.

Now I want to edit my persistent beans (containing multi-level 
master-detail information) with a Struts-based interface, and in order 
to avoid spending time reinventing the wheel, I would like to ask the 
community first:

* Can I use a persistant bean as my FormBean (or would that be asking 
for inconsistencies), or should I work with a DynaBean and then copy the 
result to the persistant bean in the end?  I will probably need some 
validation.

* If not, is there an easy way to populate such a DynaBean from my 
persistant bean and vice versa?  I would rather not have to write a lot 
of setXX( getXX()) statements.

* I have understood from the struts-hibernate example by Ted Husted that 
Struts can utilize Hibernate as a plugin, but I did not understand what 
this implies.  Is there a ressource that explains this?  Is there any 
benefit from just using the two packages directly?

Any insight would be appreciated :)  Thanks in advance.


-- 
  Thorbjoern Ravn Andersen     Scandiatransplant
                               Skejby Sygehus, indgang 3
  +45 89 49 53 01              DK-8200 AArhus N
  http://biobase.dk/~tra         



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Re: Struts + Hibernate: A few newbie questions about how to get this right?

[Vilya Harvey <vi...@digitalsteps.com>]

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen wrote:
> * Can I use a persistant bean as my FormBean (or would that be asking 
> for inconsistencies), or should I work with a DynaBean and then copy the 
> result to the persistant bean in the end?  I will probably need some 
> validation.

You could, I believe, but AFAIK it's not recommended. The Struts form beans 
are really part of the view layer and should be kept separate from the 
business and persistence layers where possible. A better approach is to use 
a DynaBean for collecting the form data and have the actions copy it into 
the appropriate model class.

> * If not, is there an easy way to populate such a DynaBean from my 
> persistant bean and vice versa?  I would rather not have to write a lot 
> of setXX( getXX()) statements.

Have a look at the commons-beanutils package that comes with Struts. In 
particular, you'll probably find BeanUtils.copyProperties() quite helpful.

Hope that helps,
Vil.
-- 
Vilya Harvey
vilya.harvey@digitalsteps.com                 / digital steps /
(W) +44 (0)1483 469 480
(M) +44 (0)7816 678 457                 http://www.digitalsteps.com/

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