model class beans are not being filled

Question

I wrote a web application where there are login.jsp, loginAction and login Beans. When I fill the form in th jsp beans in the loginbeans are being filled through loginAction. When I replicate the logic from these pages to registering an user, beans are not being filled. Here is my code..

<s:form action="login" method="post">
   <p>      <s:textfield    key="username" label="Username" required="true" /><br> 
   <p>  <s:password     key="password" label="Password" required="true" /><br> 
   <p>    <s:submit         value="SignIn"/> <br>            
</s:form>

relative code in struts.xml

<action name="login" class="com.ActionClasses.LoginAction">
   <result name="success"   type="tiles">welcome    </result>
   <result name="login" type="tiles">login      </result>
   <result name="input" type="tiles">login      </result>
</action>

LoginAction.java

public class LoginAction  extends ActionSupport implements Action, ModelDriven<LoginBeans>{

LoginBeans loginBeans = new LoginBeans();
.
.
.
    @Override
public LoginBeans getModel() {      
    return loginBeans;
}

LoginBeans.java

public class LoginBeans {
private String username;
private String password;
//getters and setters
}

This is all working fine and beans are being filled. Now take a look at registering a user.

registerOphthalmologist.jsp

<s:form action="registerOphthalmologist" method="post">     
    <s:hidden       key="role"          label="role"    value="O"       />
    <s:textfield    key="username"      label="Choose UserName" required="true"/>
    <s:password     key="password"      label="Choose Password" required="true"/>

    <s:textfield    key="givenName"     label="Name"    required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="surname"       label="Surname" required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="age"           label="Age"     required="true"     value=""/>
    <s:select       key="gender"        label="Gender"  
                        list="#{'M':'Male','F':'Female'}" 
                        required="true"/>

    <s:textfield    key="contactNumber"     name="contactNumber"    label="Contact Number"  required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="email"             name="email"            label="email"           required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="city"              name="city"             label="City"            required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="district"          name="district"         label="District"        required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="state"             name="state"            label="State"           required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="country"           name="country"          label="country"         required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="postalCode"        name="postalCode"       label="Postal Code"     required="true"/>

    <s:textfield    key="degree"            label="Qualification"           required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="university"        label="University"              required="true"     value=""/>
    <s:textfield    key="hospitalName"      label="Hospital Name"           required="true"/>
    <s:textfield    key="experience"        label="Years of Experience"     required="true"     value=""/>

    <s:checkbox     key="checkMe"       label="Agree to terms & Conditions"/>
        <s:submit       value="Register"    align="center"/>

</s:form>

relative code in struts.xml

<action name="register*" class="com.ActionClasses.RegisterAction">
   <result name="success"   type="tiles">   home        </result>
   <result name="input" type="tiles">   register{1} </result>
   <result name="error" type="tiles">   register{1} </result>
</action>

RegisterAction.java

public class RegisterAction extends ActionSupport implements Action,ModelDriven<RegisterBeans>
{
RegisterBeans registerBeans = new RegisterBeans();  
.
.
.
    @Override
public RegisterBeans getModel() {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    return registerBeans;
}

RegisterBeans.java

public class RegisterBeans extends ActionSupport{

private String username;
private String password;
private char role;
private boolean checkMe;

private String givenName;
private String surname;
private int age;
private char gender;

private String hospitalName;
private String institute;
private String university;
private String degree;
private int experience;
private int research;
private int ophthalmologists;

private String contactNumber;
private String email;
private String city;
private String district;
private String state;
private String country;
private String postalCode;
//getters and setters
}

These beans are not being filled. What is the mistake I am doing here? My complete struts.xml file is

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.0//EN" "http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.0.dtd">

<struts>
<package name="default" extends="struts-default">

    <result-types>
        <result-type name="tiles" class="org.apache.struts2.views.tiles.TilesResult" />
    </result-types>

    <action name="*Link" method="{1}" class="classes.HomeLinks">
        <result name="home"     type="tiles">home   </result>
        <result name="upload"   type="tiles">upload     </result>
        <result name="register" type="tiles">register   </result>
        <result name="login"    type="tiles">login      </result>
    </action>

    <action name="login" class="com.ActionClasses.LoginAction">
        <result name="success"  type="tiles">welcome    </result>
        <result name="login"    type="tiles">login      </result>
        <result name="input"    type="tiles">login      </result>
    </action>

    <action name="logout" class="com.ActionClasses.LogoutAction">
        <result name="success"  type="tiles">home</result>
    </action>

    <action name="register" class="classes.SpecificRegistrations">
        <result name="Ophthalmologist"  type="tiles">   registerOphthalmologist </result>
        <result name="practitioner"     type="tiles">   registerPractitioner    </result>
        <result name="Researcher"       type="tiles">   registerResearcher      </result>
        <result name="Hospital"         type="tiles">   registerHospital        </result>
        <result name="input"            type="tiles">   register                </result>
    </action>

    <action name="register*" class="com.ActionClasses.RegisterAction">
        <result name="success"  type="tiles">   home        </result>
        <result name="input"    type="tiles">   register{1} </result>
        <result name="error"    type="tiles">   register{1} </result>
    </action>

    <action name="upload" class="com.ActionClasses.UploadAction">
        <interceptor-ref name="fileUpload">
            <param name="maximumSize">3145728</param>
            <param name="allowedTypes">image/png,image/gif,image/jpeg,image/pjpeg, image/jpg</param>
        </interceptor-ref>
        <interceptor-ref name="defaultStack"></interceptor-ref>
        <result name="success"  type="tiles">   uploaded    </result>
        <result name="error"    type="tiles">   upload      </result>
    </action>
</package>
</struts>

Answer 1

Potential error:

remove extends ActionSupport from your

public class RegisterBeans extends ActionSupport{

declaration. It will be treated like an Action in some circumstances and that is not what you want.

Warnings:

1. Avoid using key attribute if you are specifying label and value too, use name instead. According to the docs, it

   Set the key (name, value, label) for this particular component

2. Always specify a namespace both in struts configuration and <s:form> attribute, it is not good to work on the default namespace only.

3. Be careful with the required="true" attribute; it works in old Struts versions, but after migrating to a newer release, it has been changed to requiredLabel, and since <s:textfield /> supports Dynamic Attributes, it will be reported on the page exactly like it is (required="true"), and then interpreted by browsers like the HTML5 required="required" attribute, making all your fields mandatory and without the * symbol ahead. I've met that yesterday while migrating an old project, it's really annoying.

4. For the sake of the consistency, an entity representing a single bean should be called LoginBean or RegisterBean instead of the plural form LoginBeans or RegisterBeans. Same for instance variables, you should use the plural form only when it is an Array, a Collection, etc...

5. ActionSupport is defined as

   public class ActionSupport implements Action, Validateable, ValidationAware, 
                                     TextProvider, LocaleProvider, Serializable {
   

   so extending it and implementing Action interface is redundant.