|
Do I have to have a separate ActionForm bean for every HTML form?
Struts Questions and Answers
(Continued from previous question...)
57. Do I have to have a separate ActionForm bean for every HTML form?
This is an interesting question. As a newbie, it is a good practice to create a new ActionForm for each action sequence. You can use DynaActionForms to help reduce the effort required, or use the code generation facilities of your IDE.
Some issues to keep in mind regarding reuse of form beans are as follows:
* Validation - You might need to use different validation rules depending upon the action that is currently being executed.
* Persistence - Be careful that a form populated in one action is not unexpectedly reused in a different action. Multiple entries in struts-config.xml for the same ActionForm subclass can help (especially if you store your form beans in session scope). Alternatively, storing form beans in request scope can avoid unexpected interactions (as well as reduce the memory footprint of your application, because no server-side objects will need to be saved in between requests.
* Checkboxes - If you do as recommended and reset your boolean properties (for fields presented as checkboxes), and the page you are currently displaying does not have a checkbox for every boolean property on the form bean, the undisplayed boolean properties will always appear to have a false value.
* Workflow - The most common need for form bean reuse is workflow. Out of the box, Struts has limited support for workflow, but a common pattern is to use a single form bean with all of the properties for all of the pages of a workflow. You will need a good understanding of the environment (ActionForms, Actions, etc.) prior to being able to put together a smooth workflow environment using a single form bean.
As you get more comfortable, there are a few shortcuts you can take in order to reuse your ActionForm beans. Most of these shortcuts depend on how you have chosen to implement your Action / ActionForm combinations.
(Continued on next question...)
Other Interview Questions
| 