Struts Validation

[Mary Cole]

Is it possible to specify the <form name=ACTIONAME"> in Validation.xml instead of actual form name

[alan do]

short answer, no

i am assuming you are looking to validate depending on which action you call, particularly you don't want validation to occur when the user is presented the first time? there are a couple of ways to go about it.

1. use requiredif rule or validwhen (struts 1.2), you'll need to have a hidden field being set on submit (via javascript). if that field is blank, then don't validate. ugly? yes!

2. structure your action-mappings intelligently. create 2 action mappings with 2 different paths, but pointing to the same form-bean. in the second action, change the validate attribute to "true" and set the input to the path of the first action-mapping.

ex.
<action path="form/entry" name="MyForm">....</action>
<action path="form/process" name="MyForm" type="ProcessAction" validate="true" input="form/entry.do">....</action>

intially, the user goes to /form/entry.do which (the jsp/tile) contains a form mapped to the action "form/process".