Populate multiple pojo's.

[Shane Hanswyk]

hi All,

I am using Struts 2 to perform servlet processing but am having trouble determining how to populate multiple pojo's with the parameter values.

My Action class looks as follows:

 public class myAction() extend ActionSupport {

    private Address address;
    private Person person;

    
    public String execute() throws Exception {

          // What do I do??

         return SUCCESS;
    }

    // Getters and Setters.
    public Address getAddress() {
       return address;
    }
    public void setAddtress( Address address ) {
       this.address = address;
    }

    public Person getPerson() {
       return person;
    }
    public void setPerson( Person person ) {
       this.person = person;
    }

}

Address and Person are pojo's.

I would like to populate the fields in the Address and Person pojo's with the parameter values passed to this action.

I know that I can implement ModelDriven to return (and populate) address but of course, nothing will be populated into person.

I am also aware that I can implement ParameterAware which gives me a Map of parameters but I assume I would then have to individally populate the member fields of each pojo. Is there any easier way and/or am I missing something? My jsp pages are not using struts tags.

Any help would be grateful.

thanks.

[David Newton]

Just name your parameters appropriately; address.addr1, address.state, person.firstName, whatever.

[Shane Hanswyk]

Thanks David for your reply.

I don't have control over the jsp. Is there any way of doing it in the Action?

ie. Maybe an intercept somewhere??

[David Newton]

There's a property mapping interceptor somewhere, um... "alias" interceptor.

Another less "mysterious" option would be to create action properties for what you *are* getting and do the conversion in the action. I'm a big fan of interceptors, but quit frankly, not a huge fan of things like the "alias" interceptor.

[Shane Hanswyk]

Thanks again David.

I was hoping for a solution that wouldn't involve me referencing the properties individually. It appears this is not possible.

I think the best option is to create the action properties and do the conversion - as you suggested.

cheers.

[David Newton]

It's possible, using the "alias" interceptor.

[Shane Hanswyk]

hmmm....interesting.

How would I go about coding this or, can you point me to somewhere that has this documented. I couldn't find any good examples.

Thanks.

[Ankit Garg]

Did you checkout the apache's documentation??

[Shane Hanswyk]

Yes. That does not explain how to do it without "referencing every property individually".

[David Newton]

The "alias" interceptor docs explain how to set up the mapping. Yes, you'd (most likely--check the underlying implementation to see if there are shortcuts available) need to map each property separately in the interceptor config for that action.

I still don't think it's worth it, though.

[Shane Hanswyk]

I agree.

Thanks for all your help, David.