Struts event sequence (WAS: getting nested tags to work with DynaActionForm???)

[Roman Fail <rf...@posportal.com>]

This is the very basic outline of Struts events (with some helpful comments) that I worked up when I was using Struts 1.0, although most of it is still the same.  Basically I've just expanded steps 3 & 4 of Dan's diagram a bit.  Chapter 5 of Chuck's book is much more detailed than this, and an excellent resource (Thanks, Chuck!).  In fact I think chapter 5 might be a bit overwhelming for a newbie, and reading the ever-changing Struts source code is not comfortable at first.  
 
I've found that this little outline has helped our new Struts developers a lot.  Craig suggested a nice UML sequence diagram for the docs, which would be great - but I'm not fluent in UML yet.  Here's my document - keep in mind it's been about a year since I wrote this, but I'd be happy to take suggestions on updating it:
 
http://www.posportal.com/StrutsOverview.html
 
Roman Fail
Sr. Web Application Developer
POS Portal, Inc.
 

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Dan Cancro [mailto:DCancro@bridgespan.com] 
	Sent: Tue 7/16/2002 5:00 PM 
	To: 'Struts Users Mailing List' 
	Cc: 
	Subject: RE: getting nested tags to work with DynaActionForm???
	
	

	I'd like to see what you've written. 
	
	Here's how I understand it so far:
	http://members.telocity.com/dcancro/images/eng/Struts_MVC.gif
	
	
	
	> -----Original Message-----
	> From: Roman Fail [mailto:rfail@posportal.com]
	> Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 4:35 PM
	> To: Rick Reumann; Struts List
	> Subject: RE: getting nested tags to work with DynaActionForm???
	>
	>
	> I had the same problem - after reviewing the source code for
	> DynaActionForm I realized that the underlying ArrayList is
	> not 'automatically' instantiated by the DynaActionForm.  In
	> other words, when the controller is trying to call
	> DynaActionForm.set("myField[0]") because it sees a request
	> parameter called 'myField[0]', there is no ArrayList there
	> yet to match the "myField" property.  My solution was to
	> subclass DynaActionForm and just override the reset() method
	> in order to instantiate the ArrayList.  (since reset() is
	> called before any setters).  I think I also did this using an
	> array of BasicDynaBeans, and again had to initialize the
	> array in reset(). 
	> 
	> Of course you don't have to do this when simply displaying
	> the data, because you are populating the property with your
	> ArrayList in Action.perform()/execute() before the
	> DynaActionForm.get() methods are ever called. 
	> 
	> Is there a better solution out there?  I don't like having to
	> write a subclass just to instantiate the ArrayList.
	> 
	> This is another example of where knowing the exact sequence
	> of Struts events is crucial.  Has anyone ever written up a
	> detailed step-by-step of what the controller does when a
	> request comes in?  I've written a brief one for our company's
	> developers - shall I post it?
	> 
	> Roman Fail
	> Sr. Web Application Developer
	> POS Portal, Inc.
	> 
	>
	>       -----Original Message-----
	>       From: Rick Reumann [mailto:maillist@reumann.net]
	>       Sent: Tue 7/16/2002 1:33 PM
	>       To: Struts List
	>       Cc:
	>       Subject: getting nested tags to work with DynaActionForm???
	>      
	>      
	>
	>       I had an ArrayList property set in my DynaActionForm
	> and it worked
	>       fine with the nested tag in displaying the information
	> from the beans
	>       in the ArrayList of this DynaActionForm. The problem
	> however came when
	>       I when I hit submit with the updated information. I kept getting
	>       BeanUtils.populate errors with no index value set for
	> 'field.xxxx[0]'.
	>       Sorry can't cite the exact error since I now went to
	> using a typical
	>       ActionForm and the nested tag page submits fine.
	>      
	>       Is there something special I need to do in order to get
	>       DynamicActionForms to work with Nested tags?
	>      
	>       Thanks,
	>      
	>       --
	>      
	>       Rick
	>       mailto:maillist@reumann.net
	>      
	>      
	>
	>
	

Re: Struts event sequence (WAS: getting nested tags to work with DynaActionForm???)

[Eddie Bush <ed...@vestus.adabbs.com>]

Hey - I wish I'd had that when I started with Struts!

I don't personally agree with your philosophy on setting autoCommit to 
true, but I liked the page other than that :-) <click>Add 
Bookmark</click>  I just feel having autoCommits off is a good thing. 
 That way you have explicit control over the transaction.  If, however, 
you typically don't need it, I can understand setting autoCommit(true). 
 Maybe I'm just too anal ;-)

Thanks :-)

Eddie


Roman Fail wrote:

>This is the very basic outline of Struts events (with some helpful comments) that I worked up when I was using Struts 1.0, although most of it is still the same.  Basically I've just expanded steps 3 & 4 of Dan's diagram a bit.  Chapter 5 of Chuck's book is much more detailed than this, and an excellent resource (Thanks, Chuck!).  In fact I think chapter 5 might be a bit overwhelming for a newbie, and reading the ever-changing Struts source code is not comfortable at first.  
> 
>I've found that this little outline has helped our new Struts developers a lot.  Craig suggested a nice UML sequence diagram for the docs, which would be great - but I'm not fluent in UML yet.  Here's my document - keep in mind it's been about a year since I wrote this, but I'd be happy to take suggestions on updating it:
> 
>http://www.posportal.com/StrutsOverview.html
> 
>Roman Fail
>Sr. Web Application Developer
>POS Portal, Inc.
>



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