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Posted to user@struts.apache.org by Renato Romano <r....@set-network.com> on 2003/03/04 17:00:05 UTC
How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
Hi all.
I'm trying to model a set of "Anagraphics" objects; each object extends
a base abstract class, and only adds getter and setter method specific
to it; all these object behave the same way, in the sense that all I
have to do on them is reading, listing, updating, inserting. I can
already persist those object in and independent way, so Action Objects
are written assuming to use the base class, and don't have to know what
the exact runtime class is; what I would like to do now is:
1) write action-mappings in struts-config in a similar independent way;
this seems difficult to me because in the mapping I have to specify the
"name" of the ActionForm bean to use, and therefore it's class!
I tried do subclass ActionServlet, and determine the class of the Bean
to use using a runtime request parameter, if present, instead of using
information from the mapping; this works, but not all work is done by
ActionServlet !! For example the <html:form> tag uses its action
attribute to look up the bean name (and type) to use, so I get stuck
again, because it tries to instantiate an abstract class; even if this
class was not abstract i get a wrong object !!. Should I extend this tag
? And what else ? Is there a better way ?
2) write jsp pages in a similar independent way. This seems more
difficult and maybe not so useful, also considering that rendering
appropriate input forms, or listing tables using generic jsp pages would
not lead to frendly interfaces, I think!!
Suggestions are welcome.
Renato
____________________________________
Renato Romano
Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
16127 - GENOVA
e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
Tel.: 010 2712603
_____________________________________
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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RE: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
Posted by Renato Romano <r....@set-network.com>.
OK, that's already done. As you see in the example struts-config down
here, I can use the same Action Object to get the result. What I want to
avoid is using several action elements in struts-config, because cats
and dogs, for those purposes are the same thing. As I said, i tried the
following:
<struts-config>
<form-beans>
<form-bean name="cats"
type="CatsForm"/>
<form-bean name="dogs"
type="DogsForm"/>
<form-bean name="pets"
type="BasePetsForm"/>
</form-beans>
<action-mappings>
<action path="/addAnagEntry"
type="AddAnagEntryAction"
name="pets" <---- what to put here
??
scope="session"
input="/newAnag.jsp"
validate="true">
<forward name="success" path="/listAnag.do"/>
<forward name="failure" path="/failure.jsp"/>
</action>
<action path="/listAnag"
type="ListAnagAction"
name="pets" <---- what to put here
??
scope="session"
input="/index.jsp"
validate="true">
<forward name="success" path="/listAnag.jsp"/>
<forward name="failure" path="/failure.jsp"/>
</action>
... And so on...
That is: using the mapping for the path /listAnag for listing not only
cats, but also dogs and monkeys. For reaching this, I extend the method
protected ActionForm processActionForm(ActionMapping mapping,
HttpServletRequest request)
of ActionServlet: this method normally checks for the existance of a
Bean of the correct class in the correct scope, eventually creates it
and returns it. Information for doing this i retrieved in the mapping
parameter passed to it /basically what is retrieved is the "name" of the
bean to search. What I did is determine this name in a request
parameter, instead of logging at the mapping. This works fine, but if
some other component (say the <html:form> tag) uses information in the
mapping (that is in struts-config) it can't work.
Renato
____________________________________
Renato Romano
Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
16127 - GENOVA
e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
Tel.: 010 2712603
_____________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Madigan [mailto:ray@madigans.org]
Sent: martedì 4 marzo 2003 18.05
To: Struts Users Mailing List; r.romano@set-network.com
Subject: RE: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
I do something very similar to this. But Im not sure exactly what you
are trying to do. If your base class is abstract and defines a general
interface that the extending classes implement, like public Collection
list ( );
and the classes that extend your base class implement this interface,
all the action class has to do is call list on the object it holds and
doesn't need to know if it is cats or dogs?
Im not sure if this helps.
-----Original Message-----
From: Renato Romano [mailto:r.romano@set-network.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 8:46 AM
To: 'Struts Users Mailing List'
Subject: RE: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
I'm not sure I understood your answer. To get closer to the problem: in
the action mapping for the path, say, "listAnag(.do)", I have to specify
the "name" attribute, which determines the class of objects I have to
retrieve and then list in the result page. Suppose I have a BaseAnagForm
class (which extends ActionForm) and then CatAnag and DogAnag, both
extending BaseAnag. What i'd like to do is determine wheter to list Cats
or Dogs, using some other parameter, because I don't want to determine
this at deploy time. A solution of course would be to define several
mappings in struts-config, like:
<action-mappings>
<action path="/listCatsAnag"
type="myPackage.ListAnagAction"
name="cats"
scope="session"
input="---"
validate="true">
<forward name="success" path="/showCatsAnag.jsp"/>
<forward name="failure" path="/failure.jsp"/>
</action>
<action path="/listDogsAnag"
type="myPackage.ListAnagAction"
name="dogs"
scope="session"
input="---"
validate="true">
<forward name="success" path="/showDogsAnag.jsp"/>
<forward name="failure" path="/failure.jsp"/>
</action>
Where dogs is a Bean of class DogsAnag and cats is a bean of class
CatsAnag. What I would like to do is configure a UNIQUE action element,
because I have lots of those objects, and the things I have to do on
them (list, save, retrieve) are substantially the same...
Thanks
____________________________________
Renato Romano
Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
16127 - GENOVA
e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
Tel.: 010 2712603
_____________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark [mailto:struts@webpit.com]
Sent: martedì 4 marzo 2003 17.03
To: struts-user@jakarta.apache.org; r.romano@set-network.com
Subject: Re: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
Not to mention the validator and everything uses BeanUtils and
PropertyUtils from commons... What remains to be seen is if these will
introspect the base (abstract) class or the proper (bean) class, but
either way i fear they will miss out on the underlying fields. i havent
personnally tested this, but perhaps the introspection is smart enough
to get the properties from "extended" classes.
You've also touched on some things I've experienced, i.e. tight
configuration between tiers in the Struts-MVC implementation. I've been
looking for a more "loose" way too.
Regards,
Mark
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 03/04/2003 at 5:00 PM Renato Romano wrote:
>Hi all.
>
>I'm trying to model a set of "Anagraphics" objects; each object extends
>a base abstract class, and only adds getter and setter method specific
>to it; all these object behave the same way, in the sense that all I
>have to do on them is reading, listing, updating, inserting. I can
>already persist those object in and independent way, so Action Objects
>are written assuming to use the base class, and don't have to know what
>the exact runtime class is; what I would like to do now is:
>
>1) write action-mappings in struts-config in a similar independent way;
>this seems difficult to me because in the mapping I have to specify the
>"name" of the ActionForm bean to use, and therefore it's class! I tried
>do subclass ActionServlet, and determine the class of the Bean to use
>using a runtime request parameter, if present, instead of using
>information from the mapping; this works, but not all work is done by
>ActionServlet !! For example the <html:form> tag uses its action
>attribute to look up the bean name (and type) to use, so I get stuck
>again, because it tries to instantiate an abstract class; even if this
>class was not abstract i get a wrong object !!. Should I extend this
>tag ? And what else ? Is there a better way ?
>
>2) write jsp pages in a similar independent way. This seems more
>difficult and maybe not so useful, also considering that rendering
>appropriate input forms, or listing tables using generic jsp pages
>would not lead to frendly interfaces, I think!!
>
>Suggestions are welcome.
>
>Renato
>
>____________________________________
>Renato Romano
>Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
>Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
>16127 - GENOVA
>
>e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
>Tel.: 010 2712603
>_____________________________________
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: struts-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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RE: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
Posted by Ray Madigan <ra...@madigans.org>.
I do something very similar to this. But Im not sure exactly what you
are trying to do. If your base class is abstract and defines a general
interface that the extending classes implement, like
public Collection list ( );
and the classes that extend your base class implement this interface,
all the action class has to do is call list on the object it holds
and doesn't need to know if it is cats or dogs?
Im not sure if this helps.
-----Original Message-----
From: Renato Romano [mailto:r.romano@set-network.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 8:46 AM
To: 'Struts Users Mailing List'
Subject: RE: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
I'm not sure I understood your answer. To get closer to the problem: in
the action mapping for the path, say, "listAnag(.do)", I have to specify
the "name" attribute, which determines the class of objects I have to
retrieve and then list in the result page. Suppose I have a BaseAnagForm
class (which extends ActionForm) and then CatAnag and DogAnag, both
extending BaseAnag. What i'd like to do is determine wheter to list Cats
or Dogs, using some other parameter, because I don't want to determine
this at deploy time. A solution of course would be to define several
mappings in struts-config, like:
<action-mappings>
<action path="/listCatsAnag"
type="myPackage.ListAnagAction"
name="cats"
scope="session"
input="---"
validate="true">
<forward name="success" path="/showCatsAnag.jsp"/>
<forward name="failure" path="/failure.jsp"/>
</action>
<action path="/listDogsAnag"
type="myPackage.ListAnagAction"
name="dogs"
scope="session"
input="---"
validate="true">
<forward name="success" path="/showDogsAnag.jsp"/>
<forward name="failure" path="/failure.jsp"/>
</action>
Where dogs is a Bean of class DogsAnag and cats is a bean of class
CatsAnag. What I would like to do is configure a UNIQUE action element,
because I have lots of those objects, and the things I have to do on
them (list, save, retrieve) are substantially the same...
Thanks
____________________________________
Renato Romano
Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
16127 - GENOVA
e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
Tel.: 010 2712603
_____________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark [mailto:struts@webpit.com]
Sent: martedì 4 marzo 2003 17.03
To: struts-user@jakarta.apache.org; r.romano@set-network.com
Subject: Re: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
Not to mention the validator and everything uses BeanUtils and
PropertyUtils from commons... What remains to be seen is if these will
introspect the base (abstract) class or the proper (bean) class, but
either way i fear they will miss out on the underlying fields. i havent
personnally tested this, but perhaps the introspection is smart enough
to get the properties from "extended" classes.
You've also touched on some things I've experienced, i.e. tight
configuration between tiers in the Struts-MVC implementation. I've been
looking for a more "loose" way too.
Regards,
Mark
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 03/04/2003 at 5:00 PM Renato Romano wrote:
>Hi all.
>
>I'm trying to model a set of "Anagraphics" objects; each object extends
>a base abstract class, and only adds getter and setter method specific
>to it; all these object behave the same way, in the sense that all I
>have to do on them is reading, listing, updating, inserting. I can
>already persist those object in and independent way, so Action Objects
>are written assuming to use the base class, and don't have to know what
>the exact runtime class is; what I would like to do now is:
>
>1) write action-mappings in struts-config in a similar independent way;
>this seems difficult to me because in the mapping I have to specify the
>"name" of the ActionForm bean to use, and therefore it's class! I tried
>do subclass ActionServlet, and determine the class of the Bean to use
>using a runtime request parameter, if present, instead of using
>information from the mapping; this works, but not all work is done by
>ActionServlet !! For example the <html:form> tag uses its action
>attribute to look up the bean name (and type) to use, so I get stuck
>again, because it tries to instantiate an abstract class; even if this
>class was not abstract i get a wrong object !!. Should I extend this
>tag ? And what else ? Is there a better way ?
>
>2) write jsp pages in a similar independent way. This seems more
>difficult and maybe not so useful, also considering that rendering
>appropriate input forms, or listing tables using generic jsp pages
>would not lead to frendly interfaces, I think!!
>
>Suggestions are welcome.
>
>Renato
>
>____________________________________
>Renato Romano
>Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
>Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
>16127 - GENOVA
>
>e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
>Tel.: 010 2712603
>_____________________________________
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: struts-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: struts-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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RE: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
Posted by Renato Romano <r....@set-network.com>.
I'm not sure I understood your answer. To get closer to the problem: in
the action mapping for the path, say, "listAnag(.do)", I have to specify
the "name" attribute, which determines the class of objects I have to
retrieve and then list in the result page. Suppose I have a BaseAnagForm
class (which extends ActionForm) and then CatAnag and DogAnag, both
extending BaseAnag. What i'd like to do is determine wheter to list Cats
or Dogs, using some other parameter, because I don't want to determine
this at deploy time. A solution of course would be to define several
mappings in struts-config, like:
<action-mappings>
<action path="/listCatsAnag"
type="myPackage.ListAnagAction"
name="cats"
scope="session"
input="---"
validate="true">
<forward name="success" path="/showCatsAnag.jsp"/>
<forward name="failure" path="/failure.jsp"/>
</action>
<action path="/listDogsAnag"
type="myPackage.ListAnagAction"
name="dogs"
scope="session"
input="---"
validate="true">
<forward name="success" path="/showDogsAnag.jsp"/>
<forward name="failure" path="/failure.jsp"/>
</action>
Where dogs is a Bean of class DogsAnag and cats is a bean of class
CatsAnag. What I would like to do is configure a UNIQUE action element,
because I have lots of those objects, and the things I have to do on
them (list, save, retrieve) are substantially the same...
Thanks
____________________________________
Renato Romano
Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
16127 - GENOVA
e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
Tel.: 010 2712603
_____________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark [mailto:struts@webpit.com]
Sent: martedì 4 marzo 2003 17.03
To: struts-user@jakarta.apache.org; r.romano@set-network.com
Subject: Re: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
Not to mention the validator and everything uses BeanUtils and
PropertyUtils from commons... What remains to be seen is if these will
introspect the base (abstract) class or the proper (bean) class, but
either way i fear they will miss out on the underlying fields. i havent
personnally tested this, but perhaps the introspection is smart enough
to get the properties from "extended" classes.
You've also touched on some things I've experienced, i.e. tight
configuration between tiers in the Struts-MVC implementation. I've been
looking for a more "loose" way too.
Regards,
Mark
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 03/04/2003 at 5:00 PM Renato Romano wrote:
>Hi all.
>
>I'm trying to model a set of "Anagraphics" objects; each object extends
>a base abstract class, and only adds getter and setter method specific
>to it; all these object behave the same way, in the sense that all I
>have to do on them is reading, listing, updating, inserting. I can
>already persist those object in and independent way, so Action Objects
>are written assuming to use the base class, and don't have to know what
>the exact runtime class is; what I would like to do now is:
>
>1) write action-mappings in struts-config in a similar independent way;
>this seems difficult to me because in the mapping I have to specify the
>"name" of the ActionForm bean to use, and therefore it's class! I tried
>do subclass ActionServlet, and determine the class of the Bean to use
>using a runtime request parameter, if present, instead of using
>information from the mapping; this works, but not all work is done by
>ActionServlet !! For example the <html:form> tag uses its action
>attribute to look up the bean name (and type) to use, so I get stuck
>again, because it tries to instantiate an abstract class; even if this
>class was not abstract i get a wrong object !!. Should I extend this
>tag ? And what else ? Is there a better way ?
>
>2) write jsp pages in a similar independent way. This seems more
>difficult and maybe not so useful, also considering that rendering
>appropriate input forms, or listing tables using generic jsp pages
>would not lead to frendly interfaces, I think!!
>
>Suggestions are welcome.
>
>Renato
>
>____________________________________
>Renato Romano
>Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
>Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
>16127 - GENOVA
>
>e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
>Tel.: 010 2712603
>_____________________________________
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: struts-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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For additional commands, e-mail: struts-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
Re: How to reuse mappings and jsp pages
Posted by Mark <st...@webpit.com>.
Not to mention the validator and everything uses BeanUtils and PropertyUtils from commons... What remains to be seen is if these will introspect the base (abstract) class or the proper (bean) class, but either way i fear they will miss out on the underlying fields. i havent personnally tested this, but perhaps the introspection is smart enough to get the properties from "extended" classes.
You've also touched on some things I've experienced, i.e. tight configuration between tiers in the Struts-MVC implementation. I've been looking for a more "loose" way too.
Regards,
Mark
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 03/04/2003 at 5:00 PM Renato Romano wrote:
>Hi all.
>
>I'm trying to model a set of "Anagraphics" objects; each object extends
>a base abstract class, and only adds getter and setter method specific
>to it; all these object behave the same way, in the sense that all I
>have to do on them is reading, listing, updating, inserting. I can
>already persist those object in and independent way, so Action Objects
>are written assuming to use the base class, and don't have to know what
>the exact runtime class is; what I would like to do now is:
>
>1) write action-mappings in struts-config in a similar independent way;
>this seems difficult to me because in the mapping I have to specify the
>"name" of the ActionForm bean to use, and therefore it's class!
>I tried do subclass ActionServlet, and determine the class of the Bean
>to use using a runtime request parameter, if present, instead of using
>information from the mapping; this works, but not all work is done by
>ActionServlet !! For example the <html:form> tag uses its action
>attribute to look up the bean name (and type) to use, so I get stuck
>again, because it tries to instantiate an abstract class; even if this
>class was not abstract i get a wrong object !!. Should I extend this tag
>? And what else ? Is there a better way ?
>
>2) write jsp pages in a similar independent way. This seems more
>difficult and maybe not so useful, also considering that rendering
>appropriate input forms, or listing tables using generic jsp pages would
>not lead to frendly interfaces, I think!!
>
>Suggestions are welcome.
>
>Renato
>
>____________________________________
>Renato Romano
>Sistemi e Telematica S.p.A.
>Calata Grazie - Vial Al Molo Giano
>16127 - GENOVA
>
>e-mail: r.romano@set-network.com
>Tel.: 010 2712603
>_____________________________________
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: struts-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
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