Servlets-4a - using supplied files without modification?

[John Godfrey]

I just worked out how to solve a problem I was having using EL to print attributes of a VideoData object in the JSP with ${videoData.title}, but it involved modifying the supplied VideoData.java - is this allowed, or do I need to find some other way round the problem?  The instructions for this assignment say I "can use these files without modification", but do I have to?

A little context: I was getting a blank page and "javax.el.PropertyNotFoundException: Property 'title' not readable on type com.javaranch.drive.videos.VideoData" in localhost.[today's date].log.   The best I could do was print out the output of the object's toString() method, but any attempt to access its properties failed.  I added the example Employee class and tried accessing its properties, and that worked fine, so I could then see that the public access modifier was the difference, and once I made VideoData public, it also worked as expected.

Also, I haven't got as far as working with the booleans dvd and vhs, but I noticed that their accessor methods are called inDVD() and inVHS(), shouldn't they be isDVD() and isVHS() in order to work with ${videoData.dvd} and ${videoData.vhs}?  So I need to know if I'm able to change these myself or if I have to find another way around it.

[Greg Charles]

Hmm, sorry about that. The original assignments had inVHS() and inDVD(). I vaguely remember that wasn't simply a typo, but I don't really remember the details. In any case, EL works with classes that strictly follow the JavaBean specification -- and that means naming accessors with "get", except for booleans where "is" is preferred. I remember updating the sample files, but it looks like either I'm wrong or that update got reverted at some point. Here's the VideoData.java you should be using:

/**
 * VideoData is a JavaBean representing data about a single video.
 */
package com.javaranch.drive.videos;

import java.io.Serializable;

public class VideoData implements Serializable
{
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    private String title;
    private String star;
    private String type;
    private boolean vhs = false;
    private boolean dvd = false;
    private String desc;

    public VideoData()
    {
    }

    public VideoData(String title, String star, String type, String desc)
    {
        this.title = title;
        this.star = star;
        this.type = type;
        this.desc = desc;
    }

    public String getTitle()
    {
        return title;
    }

    public String getStar()
    {
        return star;
    }

    public String getType()
    {
        return type;
    }

    public boolean isVhs()
    {
        return vhs;
    }

    public void setVhs(boolean vhs)
    {
        this.vhs = vhs;
    }

    public boolean isDvd()
    {
        return dvd;
    }

    public void setDvd(boolean dvd)
    {
        this.dvd = dvd;
    }

    public String getDescription()
    {
        return desc;
    }

    public void setDescription(String desc)
    {
        this.desc = desc;
    }
}

Feel free to make other changes if the sample files aren't working right for you. Just give me a heads up, so I can correct them online if need be.