Update objects suggestion

[casterx <ca...@netzero.net>]

After using OJB on a number of web projects, I keep encountering the same
problem of updating partial object data from a struts form. for example, an
object might contain 10 fields, with one PK and a few FKs. the form however,
only contains 5 fields. Since the update action doesn't get a hold of the
full object, I either have to put the original object in the session scope
or re-query it inside the update action for a second time. It seems like an
updateOnly method might come in handy for such operations. Basically, it
would work like store(), but instead of updating every single field, it
would update all the non-null members of the class and throw an exception of
the object is not already in the database.

Another way, might be to convert identity objects to a String and be able to
use that string to create a new identity object in the update action to use
that for retrieval so that the cache would be hit.

What do you guys think? How are you guys solving this problem?

Thanks
Caster