I'm working on a website in which users can add and edit things (it's not relevant describing what these things are in particular). I'm implementing it using Thymeleaf for the frontend, Spring MVC for the backend and JPA for the database logic. Now I'm trying to implement the edit logic but I don't know which is the best way to do it. What I'm thinking is: display to the user all the input fields (on a HTML page) that he is allowed to edit, already filled in with the current values. He can edit then whatever fields he wants and finally press the edit button to persist the changes. Once I get the new object in the backend, I retrieve the old version from the database in order to check which field the user changed. For every field that got changed I update the old version and only when I've finished I call the JPA method save and I persist the new version of that object. Is there a better way to do it? It would be perfect if the object I put inside the model in order to display all its field to the user inside the HTML page, could mantain all the information of the old object and not just the ones the user can change. Let me explain better what I'm trying to say with an example:
Let's say the object we are trying to edit its called Person and has these attributes:
- id
- name
- surname
- money
- nickname
- sex
But the user can edit only the following attributes:
- money
- nickname
- sex
so the controller which handler the get request of the page would look like this:
@GetMapping("person/{personId}/edit")
public String getEditPersonPage(@PathVariable Integer personId, Model model) {
Person person = personService.getById(personId); //person has all the attributes filled in
model.addAttribute("person", person);
and the controller which handler the put request looks like this:
@PutMapping("person/{personId}/edit")
public String editPerson(@ModelAttribute Person person, @PathVariable Integer personId){
personService.editPerson(person); //person has only the three fields filled in and all the other attributes as NULL
return "redirect:/person/" + personId;
}
the HTML page:
<form th:object="${person}" th:method="PUT">
<fieldset>
<p th:text="*{id}"></p>
<p th:text="*{name}"></p>
<p th:text="*{surname}"></p>
<input type="number" th:field="*{money}" th:value="*{money}" />
<input type="text" th:field="*{nickname}" th:value="*{nickname}" />
<input type="text" th:field="*{sex}" th:value="*{sex}" />
<input type="submit" value="Edit" />
</fieldset>
</form>
When I insert the object person inside the model to render the HTML page the object has all the attributes. Indeed I can decide which of its attributes display inside the HTML page (in this case only three: money, nickname and sex). But when the user press the submit button (edit), I receive only the fields displayed inside the HTML page (money, nickname, sex). So what I have to do is: I have to take these three fields, check if they are changed and if so, update the old version. It would be perfect if when the user press the submit button, all the fields of person (and not just those three he is allowed to update) could be retrieved by the controller. In that case I could skip the check phase and persist directly the new version inside the database (with the old values unchanged and not set to NULL).
Any thoughts?
