DO NOT REPLY [Bug 15540] New: - You can't control validation from within a form

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http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=15540

You can't control validation from within a form

           Summary: You can't control validation from within a form
           Product: Struts
           Version: Nightly Build
          Platform: Other
        OS/Version: Other
            Status: NEW
          Severity: Normal
          Priority: Other
         Component: Controller
        AssignedTo: struts-dev@jakarta.apache.org
        ReportedBy: beskrowni@alumni.cmu.edu


It sure would be nice if ActionForm had a shouldValidate() method that would 
control whether or not validate() was invoked.  

I realize the I've gone for almost two years without realizing that i needed 
this, so I figure I need to provide a use case in order to make my case more 
compelling.  

Say you have a standard wizard action.  In general, the each step of your 
wizard has three options: next, back, and cancel.  All three are submit 
buttons, and when you click anyone of them, your standard wizard action will 
route to the appropriate ActionForward.  The problem is, whenever I click on 
the back or cancel buttons, I *never* want to do the validation logic.  With a 
shouldValidate method in my ActionForm, I could tell the RequestProcessor to 
bypass validation for certain submissions.  (I realize that there is already a 
trap for cancelled operations, but what I'm proposing is more flexible.)

I also realize that the struts-config allows me to turn off validation for a 
particular action mapping, but this is different.  In my case, validation 
should be invoked based on what was submitted in the form.  I realize that I 
could just always build this into my validate method, but a more elegant 
solution would be add 3 lines to RequestProcessor.processValidate() and one 
method to ActionForm.  So little work, so much benefit (at least to me).

For what it's worth, here are the diffs with my proposed changes:

Index: RequestProcessor.java
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/cvspublic/jakarta-
struts/src/share/org/apache/struts/action/RequestProcessor.java,v
retrieving revision 1.22
diff -b -c -r1.22 RequestProcessor.java
*** RequestProcessor.java	12 Nov 2002 03:56:09 -0000	1.22
--- RequestProcessor.java	19 Dec 2002 17:08:42 -0000
***************
*** 905,910 ****
--- 905,914 ----
              return (true);
          }
  
+         if (!form.shouldValidate(mapping, request)) {
+             return (true);
+         }
+ 
          // Call the form bean's validation method
          if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
              log.debug(" Validating input form properties");




Index: ActionForm.java
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/cvspublic/jakarta-
struts/src/share/org/apache/struts/action/ActionForm.java,v
retrieving revision 1.13
diff -b -c -r1.13 ActionForm.java
*** ActionForm.java	20 Oct 2002 17:06:57 -0000	1.13
--- ActionForm.java	19 Dec 2002 17:11:38 -0000
***************
*** 268,272 ****
--- 268,279 ----
  
      }
  
+     public boolean shouldValidate(ActionMapping mapping,
+                                   HttpServletRequest request) {
+ 
+         return (true);
+ 
+     }
+ 
  
  }

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