Jakarta Struts Cookbook

6.9. Submitting a Form from Localized Form Controls

Problem

You want to use a single Action class to process related operations where each button, which has a localized value, on a form corresponds to a specific method in the Action class.

Solution

Extend the Struts pre-built LookupDispatchAction with your own class. Provide methods for each operation you wish to be called. Each method should have the same signature as the execute( ) method. Implement the getKeyMethodMap() method, mapping the button label resource bundle key to the corresponding method name to call. The Action class shown in Example 6-6 provides three related operations in one class: create( ), update( ), and delete( ). The getKeyMethodMap( ) method returns a map where the map key is a MessageResources key for the button label, and the map value is the corresponding method name.

Example 6-6. LookupDispatchAction for related operations

package com.oreilly.strutsckbk.ch06; import java.util.HashMap; import java.util.Map; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping; import org.apache.struts.actions.LookupDispatchAction; public class MyLookupDispatchAction extends LookupDispatchAction { public MyLookupDispatchAction( ) { keyMethodMap = new HashMap( ); keyMethodMap.put("button.add", "create"); keyMethodMap.put("button.edit", "update"); ...