Michael Jouravlev wrote:
After you filled in the form, you call EntityAction with "store"
command. It validates the input and then tries to update/store data.
If input is not valid, the action checks the state field and forward
to a JSP that corresponds to that state. The page will be displayed
along with the errors. If data is saved successfully, you forward to
your success page, which is probably the item list. Same with
deletion, after "delete" event is served, you forward to success page.
Right, but the difficulty here is that the validation then has to be
done in the action, and I can't rely on the 'validate="true"' to use
ValidatorForm's validate() method and dump my simple,
non-database-reliant validations into validations.xml.
Here's what I'm doing for all my entities (things are bound to get more
complex, as for now I'm just doing an "admin" module, which is pretty
isolated against everything else, but I'll cross those bridges once I
get to them):
I have a class called EntityAction (extends DispatchAction). It has the
following actions:
- newEntity: Clears the request form and forwards to create_entity.jsp
- createEntity: Creates the entity in the database and forwards to
edit_entity.jsp
- updateEntity: Updates the entity in the database and forwards to
edit_entity.jsp
- retrieveEntity: Gets the entity out of the database, populates the
form and forwards to edit_entity.jsp
- deleteEntity: Deletes the entity from the database, and forwards
to create_entity.jsp
This is far, far cleaner than the approach I was using before I read
these e-mails :). Additionally, I use exactly one form for this process.
A little trickery starts to appear when I have a child entity. Now I
have to make the following modifications:
- newChild, createChild: Needs to redirect to parents.jsp if no
parent key is supplied
- updateChild, retrieveChild, deleteChild: Needs to redirect to
parents.jsp if child key not supplied or found
I also need to accommodate for a valid child key being specified without
a parent key, as I can correct this by populating the parent key from
the database. Fun stuff :).
Anyways, what I may do is some kind of hybrid form/validation where the
action validates the form and determines the appropriate forward on
failure. My only issue is the one mentioned above, where I'm not sure
how to hook this into the validator mechanism.
I love this stuff (especially the whole "find the best way to do
something you can already technically do," I just wish I knew more about
it...
Thanks!
- Scott
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