Re: validator and dispatch action

[Adam Hardy <ah...@cyberspaceroad.com>]

It depends on why you wanted to use dispatch action in the first place.

Yet another technique is to have multiple actions using the same action 
class, but with a seperate "parameter='whatever'" attribute, where 
'whatever' is 'update', 'delete' etc.

In fact you can put most common code in a base Action class, and in the 
subclass do the important bit. As long as the base class has a suitable 
switching / if else if clause, then you only need the one for the whole app.

HTH
Adam

On 03/31/2004 08:06 PM Paul Barry wrote:
> You could do this same thing in Strust 1.1, except that you would need 
> the method parameter.  In struts 1.1, the links would be:
> 
> /createSubscription.do?method=create
> /editSubscription.do?method=edit
> ...
> 
> And with MappingDispatchAction they would be
> 
> /createSubscription.do
> /editSubscription.do
> ...
> 
> That's a litte bit nicer, but if you are going to go through the trouble 
> of defining an action-mapping for each method, why not just skip the 
> dispatch aciton altogether and have separate actions?  If you keep all 
> related actions in a package together, is it any harder to manage?  I am 
> talking about having a configuration like this:
> 
> <action path="/createSubscription"
>           type="org.example.subscription.SubscriptionCreateAction">
>       <forward name="success" path="/editSubscription.jsp"/>
>   </action>
> 
>   <action path="/editSubscription"
>           type="org.example.subscription.SubscriptionEditAction">
>       <forward name="success" path="/editSubscription.jsp"/>
>   </action>
> 
>   <action path="/saveSubscription"
>           type="org.example.subscription.SubscriptionSaveAction"
>           name="subscriptionForm"
>           validate="true"
>           input="/editSubscription.jsp"
>           scope="request">
>       <forward name="success" path="/savedSubscription.jsp"/>
>   </action>
> 
>   <action path="/deleteSubscription"
>           type="org.example.subscription.SubscriptionDeleteAction"
>           name="subscriptionForm"
>           scope="request"
>           input="/subscription.jsp">
>       <forward name="success" path="/deletedSubscription.jsp"/>
>   </action>
> 
>   <action path="/listSubscriptions"
>           type="org.example.subscription.SubscriptionListAction">
>       <forward name="success" path="/subscriptionList.jsp"/>
>   </action>
> 
> 
> Mike Foody wrote:
> 
>> If you're not opposed to using 1.2 the MappingDispatchAction will 
>> allow you to easily set up multiple action mappings, each capable of 
>> having their own ActionForm, validation, etc and then actually handle 
>> these all with a multiple methods in a single Action class. 
>> http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/api/index.html
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> Paul Barry wrote:
>>
>>> Hello Everyone,
>>>
>>> I am using the validator and dispatch actions and I am wonder what 
>>> the best way to do this is.  Consider that I have the following 
>>> method in a dispatch action:
>>>
>>> add    - populates collections for drop-down lists, forwards to jsp page
>>> create - needs to do validation and store in database
>>> edit   - needs to populate form with the data to edit, forward to jsp 
>>> page
>>> update - needs to do validation and update database
>>> delete - needs to delete a record from the database
>>>
>>> You can see how the validation would be different for these actions. 
>>> Let's say this is a dispatch action related to administrating users.  
>>> So for add, there would be no validation, it just gets the data need 
>>> to build the form.  For create, there might be a password and verify 
>>> password field that need to be validated, but update wouldn't have 
>>> those fields.  Edit and delete would have to have a parameter for the 
>>> primary key of the record to edit or delete.
>>>
>>> Now I found something related at this link:
>>>
>>> http://nagoya.apache.org/wiki/apachewiki.cgi?ValidatorDispatchAction
>>>
>>> Which says to set validate to false in the struts-config.xml and then 
>>> call validate method within each method of the dispatch action, like 
>>> this:
>>>
>>> ActionErrors errors = new ActionErrors();
>>> errors = form.validate(mapping, request);
>>>
>>> // Report any errors we have discovered back to the original form
>>> if (!errors.isEmpty()) {
>>>     saveErrors(request, errors);
>>>     return  new ActionForward(mapping.getInput());
>>> }
>>>
>>> This seems like a really good solution to me, but there is one 
>>> problem.  How do you call a different set of validation rules, based 
>>> on which method you are in?  Doesn't this need to be something like 
>>> this:
>>>
>>> edit() {
>>>     ActionErrors errors = new ActionErrors();
>>>     errors = form.validateEdit(mapping, request);
>>> }
>>>
>>> update() {
>>>     ActionErrors errors = new ActionErrors();
>>>     errors = form.validateUpdate(mapping, request);
>>> }
>>>
>>> Because the rules for validating edit and update are different.  You 
>>> could define different action-mappings in your struts config for each 
>>> dispatch method, and then a form in your validation.xml for each 
>>> action-mapping, where the form name is the same as the path property 
>>> of the action-mapping, but doesn't this defeat the purpose of the 
>>> dispatch action?  Why not just have separate actions at that point?  
>>> I think the answer is to just not use the dispatch action with the 
>>> validator, but I wanted to know if others had found a way to do it.
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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