[Webmacro-devel] Binary accessor "set" problem

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

Hi all,

I'm working against WM 1.1 final source, developing this WM "run and go" 
webapp currently codenamed "WebMacro Ignition".

I've come across a funny. I can't -set-a property that has a binary 
accessor. A glance over the WM source for this  (PropertyOperatorCache) has 
not enlightened me and the laptop I'm using is just toooo slow for 
interactive debug against Tomcat at the mo.

Anyway, I'm getting this error in my template:

Ignition encountered an error while executing a template: 
FileTemplate:C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Tomcat 4.1\webapps\ignition\WEB- 
INF\classes\index.wm: 
org.webmacro.PropertyException$NoSuchPropertyException: No public property 
Parameters on variable $action of class 
org.webmacro.ignition.api.action.ActionParams at C:\Program Files\Apache 
Group\Tomcat 4.1\webapps\ignition\WEB-INF\classes\index.wm:17.2

The part of the template causing offence is:

#set $action.Parameters.Template = "itworked.wm"

...and $action is of type ActionParams which has the following methods:

public void setParameters(String key, Object value)

public String getParameters(String key)

... I know binary accessor "get" works as have used it elsewhere but this 
is the first time I've tried to "set" using it.

Also, while binary accessor is certainly a convenience I'm starting to 
wonder whether it is a bit of an abomination. i.e. you cannot rewrite my 
previous bit of WM script as this:

#set $params = $action.Parameters
#set $params.Template = "itworked.wm"

Well... you could if there was a "proxy" created to represent the virtual 
field "Parameters" internally in WM that handled this but it would be 
pretty nasty. Granted many web developers would not think of doing this, 
but it disturbs me that we can get ourselves into an inconsistent situation 
by using binary accessors. I think I may stop using them having realised 
this.

$0.02

The webapp thing is coming along nicely though. I've got the meat of it 
done, and it's serving evaluated WM templates now. Doesn't sound like much 
but this is the tip of the iceberg, all the action mechanism stuff 
(including unlimited length action chains) is coded by not debugged. :-)

I've also thrown in support for segregated "modules" where each module has 
its own WebMacro instance and therefore is separated from any others - i.e. 
a "WebMacro App Container" where you can deploy multiple webmacro 
"applications" without affecting any other code/templates.

Best wishes,
Marc
-- 
Marc Palmer
http://www.wangjammers.org