After posting the last message, I realised that the "categoryId" form field's value was searched for in a request parameter named "category", while the form field's name (property) that got submitted and thus returned after validation was "categoryId". Thus, the EL ${param.category} naturally didn't find the "categoryId" parameter.
Changing all occurrences of "category" to "categoryId" solved this problem, the "categoryId" value got re-populated when returning from validation. Yee!
But the user-fillable fields "topic" and "message" were still empty when returning from validation. I realised that if I put an EL in their value-attributes as well, I'd probably be able to pick those values up from the returning request. So, I changed the tags to
Topic: <html-el:text property="topic" value="${param.topic}" size="20" maxlength="40" /><br/>
Message: <html-el:textarea property="message" value="${param.message}" cols="60" rows="10" /><br/>
Everything worked out fine! Yee!
Then I thought about my login-form in the application, which works about the same way. That form does get re-populated after validation without the value="${param.foo}" attributes. In fact, the tags didn't have a value-attribute at all.
So the next step was to remove the value-attributes all together from the topic and message tags. I recalled that this of some reason didn't work earlier (I got some sort of exception about not finding a bean or something), so that's why I put those value-attributes there in the first place. Well, everything worked fine without the value-attributes. Yee!
But when visiting the form later on, the values I filled in earlier was still there. Why? Ah, the scope="session" in the action definition! Replacing session with request did the job. Now everything works as it should!
So, the working configuration:
- html-el-tags with value-attributes that pick up the request parameters when entering the page
- consistent naming of form field names throughout the app (also in form beans, their configurations and business logic beans for safety :)
- html-tags without the value-attribute where no data has to be picked up when entering the page
- scope="request" in the action mapping
- input=".tiles.definition.name" in the action mapping
Thanks Antony for the tiles name tip, which got me going again! :)
Regards, Fredrik
Fredrik Boström wrote:
Thanks for your comment.
I tried what you proposed, replacing the action path with the tile definition name. The result was that the tile didn't know which form to display (because the page containes three forms, one of which is selected according to the action request parameter), and thus didn't display anything.
So, I thought "if I put another hidden field into the form holding the action value"... Like this:
<logic:equal parameter="action" value="thread">
<!-- Create new thread -->
<h1>New Thread</h1>
<html:form action="/CreateThread">
<html-el:hidden property="author" value="${user.nickname}"/>
<html-el:hidden property="action" value="${param.action}"/>
<html-el:hidden property="categoryId" value="${param.category}"/>
Topic: <html:text property="topic" value="" size="20" maxlength="40" /><br/>
Message: <html:textarea property="message" value="" cols="60" rows="10" /><br/>
<html:submit value="Create" />
</html:form>
</logic:equal>
I also added the action field to the DynaValidatorActionForm definition in the struts-config.xml. But in the validator configuration files, the field is ignored.
The action definition in the struts-config.xml file still has scope="session".
The result of this was quite surprising:
When submitting invalid information
- the validation works fine
- the form returns to the correct page with the correct form displayed
- the form fields' values are still missing EXCEPT FOR the user and action fields
So the missing fields are still: - categoryId - topic - message
Like this: <!-- Create new thread --> <h1>New Thread</h1>
<form name="createForm" method="post" action="/forum_dev/CreateThread.do">
<input type="hidden" name="author" value="fredde">
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="thread">
<input type="hidden" name="categoryId" value="">
Topic: <input type="text" name="topic" maxlength="40" size="20" value=""><br/>
Message: <textarea name="message" cols="60" rows="10"></textarea><br/>
<input type="submit" value="Create">
</form>
As I see it, the action and categoryId fields should be treated the exact same way. But still only action gets re-populated when returning from the validation. Confusing...
Ideas?
Regards, Fredrik
Antony Joseph wrote:
Try this. The input point to your tile. <!-- Process new Category --> <action path="/CreateCategory" type="manegen.forum.CreateCategoryAction" name="createForm" scope="session" input="input"> <forward name="input" path=".view.newForm" /> <forward name="success" path="/Home.do"/> </action>
----- Original Message ----- From: "Fredrik Boström" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Struts Users Mailing List" <user@struts.apache.org> Subject: Re: Losing form values after validating Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 19:46:23 +0200
Just for completeness, I'll post some more relevant information about the application.
newForm.jsp (partly) -------------------- <logic:equal parameter="action" value="thread"> <!-- Create new thread --> <h1>New Thread</h1>
<html:form action="/CreateThread">
<html-el:hidden property="author" value="${user.nickname}"/>
<html-el:hidden property="categoryId" value="${param.category}"/>
Topic: <html:text property="topic" value="" size="20" maxlength="40" /><br/>
Message: <html:textarea property="message" value="" cols="60" rows="10" /><br/>
<html:submit value="Create" />
</html:form>
</logic:equal>
struts-config.xml (partly) ------------------------- <!-- Multi purpose form for creating stuff --> <form-bean name="createForm"
type="org.apache.struts.validator.DynaValidatorActionForm"> <form-property name="author" type="java.lang.String" /> <form-property name="categoryId" type="java.lang.Integer" /> <form-property name="threadId" type="java.lang.Integer" /> <form-property name="topic" type="java.lang.String" /> <form-property name="message" type="java.lang.String" /> <form-property name="replyto" type="java.lang.Integer" /> <form-property name="categoryName" type="java.lang.String" /> <form-property name="categoryDescription" type="java.lang.String" /> </form-bean> </form-beans>
<!-- Display new user|category|thread|message form --> <action path="/NewForm" forward=".view.newForm" />
<!-- Process new Category --> <action path="/CreateCategory" type="manegen.forum.CreateCategoryAction" name="createForm" scope="session" input="input"> <forward name="input" path="/NewForm.do?action=category" /> <forward name="success" path="/Home.do"/> </action>
tiles-defs.xml (partly) ----------------------- <tiles-definitions>
<!-- main layout --> <definition name=".layout.main" path="/layout/layout.jsp"> <put name="title" value="Manegen Forum"/> <put name="body" value=""/> </definition>
<!-- views = extensions to the main layout --> <definition name=".view.newForm" extends=".layout.main"> <put name="body" value="/newForm.jsp" /> </definition>
</tiles-definitions>
This is really bothering me, so any ideas would help.
Best regards, Fredrik
Fredrik Boström wrote:
Hi all.
I'm working on a small message-forum project and have stumbled upon many problems along the way, most of which I've been able to more or less solve. To the most recent problem, though, I haven't found any solution despite lots of googling.
I'm using a DynaValidatorActionForm to validate input from a form (actually several forms). The form is one of three forms in the same jsp-page. The form to be used is determined by a logic-tag that looks for an action-parameter and ckecks its value. If the value is "thread" the thread-form is displayed. So the URI to display the thread-form would be /NewForm.do?action=thread.
I also have to pass another parameter to the thread-form, namely to which category the thread belongs. This parameter's value is inserted into a hidden field in the form. So, the final URI would be /NewForm.do?action=thread&category=1.
Other fields in the form are - a hidden username field, value from user session bean - thread topic (input type="text") - message (input type="textarea")
So, the populated form (but not yet filled in by the user) would look like this:
<form name="createForm" method="post" action="/forum_dev/CreateThread.do">
<input type="hidden" name="author" value="Joe"> <-- from bean
<input type="hidden" name="categoryId" value="1"> <-- from request parameter
Topic: <input type="text" name="topic" maxlength="40" size="20" value=""><br/>
Message: <textarea name="message" cols="60" rows="10"></textarea><br/>
<input type="submit" value="Create">
</form>
When submitting the form, I want it to be validated and if the validation fails, the user is returned to the same page with error-messages displayed. This is currently done by using the following action (which is the action the form submits to):
<action path="/CreateThread" type="manegen.forum.CreateThreadAction" name="createForm" scope="request" input="input"> <forward name="input" path="/NewForm.do?action=thread" /> <forward name="success" path="/ShowMessages.do" /> <forward name="failure" path="/ShowThreads.do" /> </action>
Validation works fine (when it's failing :), the validator returns to the right page with the right form visible, messages display as they should and everythings seems to be a-ok.
But, the problem is that when the validation fails, all form values (except "author" which comes from the session bean) are lost. This is surely due to the fact that control passes through another action before getting back to the form page. The values somehow get lost on the way.
Is there any way to keep the form data through this process? I've tried putting scope="session" in the /CreateThread action but with no success. Another alternative would be to maintain a session bean which contains fields for the current category, thread etc, but that bean would demand lots of updating all the time. Any simple solution to this problem?
Grateful for any suggestions.
Regards, Fredrik
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Antony Joseph http://www.logicden.com https://workeffort.dev.java.net
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