Re: Example of what I mean by problem when Action chaining

Of course this fixed it:
<forward name="Saved"    path="/do/chapterAction?Dispatch=edit" redirect 
= "true" />
but... as you say, be aware.
.V
(I would almost argue it's a bug..... but if it makes sense to you).

Vic Cekvenich wrote:

> I am able to reproduce your issue using your code. I was not aware 
> that this was an issue.
> Excellent and concise example you posted.
> What is your proposed solution?
> ..V
>
> Rick Reumann wrote:
>
>> I'll try to be brief as possible here. I put up a war file at
>> http://www.reumann.net/reumann/struts/actionProblem.html that you can
>> download and place in your webapps directory and see an example of how
>> there are problems to consider when you forward from one Action to 
>> another
>> (Action chaining this is called- lot about it on the Struts list).
>>
>> The idea that you can build navigation without concern about your 
>> underlying
>> FormBeans only 'definitely' holds true when you are not forwarding to 
>> another
>> Action. When you forward to another Action there are things to 
>> consider. I
>> started the "My Headache" thread because of a situation that came when
>> forwarding from one Action to another Action and I mentioned that if you
>> could avoid this you are better off.
>> If you run the action_problem app at the link above you'll see just one
>> very small example- not the exact example I ran into but something
>> similar. If you don't feel like looking at the war here is a brief 
>> summary
>> of the situation:
>>
>> Two form beans:
>>
>> BookBean
>> private String title;
>> private String description;
>> private String bookNote;
>>
>> ChapterBean
>> private String title;
>> private String description;
>> private String content;
>>
>>
>> Two Dispatch Actions
>>    BookAction
>>    ChapterAction
>>
>> 1) On bookForm.jsp to fill out title, description, bookNote and submit
>> will save. Form submits to BookAction
>>
>> 2) BookAction has dispatch "save" and does the save, but now you want 
>> the
>> user to fill out the ChapterBean and save that you so you have the
>> BookAction foward to the ChapterAction with dispatch "edit"
>>
>> 3) Now you are on the editChapter.jsp but NOTICE the title and 
>> description
>> properties - they are filled in with the Book title and Book 
>> description!
>> This makes sense though since the Request object is propogated along 
>> from
>> one Action to the next when your forward to another Action (and
>> ChapterBean has a title and description property as well).
>>
>>
>> So the point I'm just trying to make is there are things to watch out 
>> for
>> when Action chaining. Most agree that Action chaining serves it's 
>> purpose
>> when you have one large FormBean that you need populated over several
>> pages (ie- imagine online Tax Form preperations). However, in most
>> circumstances it seems best to avoid forwarding one Action to another
>> Action.
>>
>>
>> My "headache' example was much more complex than the above example 
>> but it
>> basically was a result of forwarding from one Action to another 
>> Action. (
>> I had a nice nested beans detail display page and a link to "add a Task"
>> from that page. When you clicked on the link to "add Task" you go 
>> through
>> "taskAction" and when finished after Save you'd forward to the
>> "detailAction" to bring you back to the detail page. Well when that
>> occured Request properties that were on the taskForm.jsp were setting
>> properties of other beans on the detail page since they had similar
>> names).
>>
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>

-- 
Vic Cekvenich,
Struts Instructor,
1-800-917-JAVA

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