Thanks for the responses, Bill & Niall. This is what I finally found out, and thought would be useful sharing. Struts 1.1 calls the 'initialize(ActionMapping)' method as part of RequestUtils.createActionForm() . Struts 1.2.4 does NOT seem to call the DynaActionForm.initialize(ActionMapping ) or the other DynaActionForm.initialize(FormBeanConfig ) . The initial values that get loaded from the struts-config.xml is because of the RequestUtils class invoking the corresponding FormBeanConfig object which reads up the initial values from struts-config.xml. So, in my case where I had coded an initialize() method calculating the two date fields (checkin date / checkout date) to be 21 days from today, was never getting called. Bill's advice of using making reset() invoke 'initialize()' works for all simple usages of Struts if we use only the HTML Form tag to load the form. That's because the the Form Taglib ends up invoking a 'RequestProcessor.process()' method which explicitly calls the 'reset' on the FormBean. I had cases where I was switching form beans, copying values from alternate forms, etc. In those situations, I had used RequestUtils.createActionForm(). Here, I had to add an extra invocation to 'reset' just like the RequestProcessor is doing. To sum it all up: 1. Put in a reset that calls the 'initialize()' OR put the 'initialize()' code in 'reset'. Like the documentation. 2. Wherever you are using the RequestUtils.createActionForm(), make sure to call the 'reset' or 'initialize' immediately after. Thanks for the help, Natraj -----Original Message----- From: Natraj Gujran Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 4:44 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: Struts 1.2.4 - DynaActionForm.initialize(ActionMapping) no longer called ? Hi, This has come up during migration of our Struts 1.1 app to 1.2.4. It doesn't look like the 'initialize()' method of DynaActionForm is called anymore ? In our application, we cannot initialize form values by using static values in struts-config.xml. Eg: if a date is to be initialized 21 days from today, AFAIK , we had to put that code in the initialize() method. Right now, I'm at a loss about what next to do - any tips will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Natraj
