Re: [FormProc-developer] Simplifying the API

[Dan B. <da...@ch...>]

+1 ;)

On Wed, 2002-03-13 at 13:10, Anthony Eden wrote:
> 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
> 
> 
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