Raible's Wiki: ValueObjectInForm

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Recently I was discussing with Matt about where to put those special ""view"" get/set methods that are needed when a model value object has to be adapted to a form. At the same time were were discussing DynaActionForms vs. XDoclet generated ActionForms and I realized it was all related, so I will try to sum it up as best I can here.

~ [Mojavelinux]

When I first started developing with Struts (pre 1.0), I'd just have a

simple form with a DTO (VO back then) as a getter/setter on my form. In the

last year, I've changed to have a DTO and a Form, where the DTO has the true

data types (Long, Date, etc) and the form has only Strings. After doing it

both ways, it seems like the DTO as a getter/setter is really the better way

to go. I'm not trying to say it's the *right* way according to the design

patterns, I'm just offering my $.02 from experience. I continue to do it the

BeanUtils.copyProperties() way, but the projects I work on that do it the

other way seem cleaner.

For an example of a DTO -> BeanUtils.copyProperties() -> Form, check out the

following links:

DTO -> User.java (source: [http://tinyurl.com/emo7])

Conversion -> UserManagerImpl.java (source: [http://tinyurl.com/emof] - see convert() method). This extends BaseManager ([http://tinyurl.com/emok]), which registers custom converters. No DateConverter in this example, but I've done it at my day job, so I know it's fairly easy.

Form -> UserForm.java (generated via XDoclet from User.java)

--> Please see [DTOInForm]

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