[Webwork-user] WebWork 0.7 - Struts example, input validation

[Rickard <ri...@jb...>]

WebWork 0.7 is available in CVS

I have just uploaded the last pieces of WebWork 0.7 to CVS (SourceForge
FTP is full so I will do the zip upload later).

There is a new ValidationEditorSupport base class available. This is
useful for creating PropertyEditors that perform validation of input
parameters, which can now be *completely externalized from the Actions*.
This is a very important feature. This means that your Actions does not
have to deal with validating the input, even if the input is strings
that should simply conform to some given pattern. Instead you should
create a BeanInfo object that describes what JavaBean PropertyEditors
should be used for each attribute, and then the standard JavaBeans API
will be used to interact with them for validation. If something goes
wrong you can use the ValidationAware interface to get the exceptions,
and as outlined in earlier post the ActionFormSupport base action does
this so that the error messages are available to be used in, for
example, generic JSP controls.

This is also important if you want to reuse Actions in different
projects, where the only difference between the projects are the
requirements on the input parameters (not uncommon scenario). Then, all
you have to do is make a new set of PropertyEditors, and make sure the
BeanInfo about the Action uses them. No changes to the Actions
themselves would be needed.

In addition, the recent Struts example from JavaWorld has been fully
converted to WebWork, and now uses the above validation techniques. The
code is *very* clean and simple, and truly shows how WebWork makes it
effortless to create web apps. Thor (the original author) is in CC of
this post, and it would be great if you could comment on what you think
about the adaptation from an implementation/design point of view.

regards,
  Rickard

-- 
Rickard Öberg

Email: ri...@jb...