Doug Emery

I had this same problem, the "No bean specified" error --

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No bean specified at org.apache.commons.beanutils.PropertyUtils.getPropertyDescriptor(PropertyUtils.java:837) at org.apache.commons.beanutils.BeanUtils.setProperty(BeanUtils.java:934) at org.apache.commons.beanutils.BeanUtils.populate(BeanUtils.java:808)

-- in a case where I was using a indexed sub-form properties. In order set a property like childForm[0].field1, Struts has to get a ChildForm instance from a call to
ParentForm.getChildForm(int i);

I was quietly returning null if no form instance was found at index i.

I changed my code from:

public class ParentForm { // ... public ChildForm getChildForm(int i) { return (ChildForm)this.myIndexedObjectContainer.getItem(i); } // ... }

to:

public class ParentForm { // ... public ChildForm getChildForm(int i) { if(this.myIndexedObjectContainer.getItem(i) == null) { this.myIndexedObjectContainer.setItem(i, new ChildForm()); } return (ChildForm)this.myIndexedObjectContainer.getItem(i); } // ... }