[FormProc-developer] Simplifying the API

[Anthony E. <ae...@si...>]

Greetings all,

Dan and I have been discussing ways to simplify the validation part of the FormProc API.  The main issue is with the
fact that group validators and element validators are currently treated as separate validator types.  This leads to
confusing configuration files, more classes, etc.  Dan suggested that all element validators should be just considered a
group of 1.  After some discussion back and forth we agreed upon the following validator API:

  public abstract ValidationResult validate(FormElement[] formElements, FormData[] formData) throws Exception;

Then, validators can either validate each element in the array individually using the same algorithm, or validators
could look at the data as a single entity (i.e. the group validator behavior as it is currently defined.)

There will also be a change from the current behavior with respect to how forms are processed.  Currently the form data
received dictates which elements are processed.  The new behavior will be that all elements defined in the form's XML
configuration file will be processed, thus catching cases where no value is received from the client (and perhaps
failing out because of that.)  This leads me to the question: what to with submitted data where there is no validator?
The current behavior would just not validate and would only try to call the target object's write method with the data.
If this is OK, I will keep this behavior.

Any opinions?  This will of course break the API once again, but it would greatly simplify it as well.  If you see any
problems with this new design please speak your piece now before I go forward with the changes.

Sincerely,
Anthony Eden