Wrong mapping between FORM and Back-en object when having embedded collections

[Giorgio77]

Hi all,
here is a problem I had for several days now and couldn't find any solution, maybe someone can help me.
When I submit a request (though Spring Web Flow), the mapping between the FORM and the back-end object is not correctly performed when mapping embedded collections.

Here is the HTML code generated:


<FORM id="myObjectForm" action="/myapplicationWeb-1.0-SNAPSHOT/admin/client/updateClient.htm?execution=e2s2"
method="post">
<H3>Client Attributes</H3>
<BR />
<BR />
<TABLE>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD id="dynForm0">
<HR style="COLOR: #ba3209; HEIGHT: 3px" />
<INPUT type="hidden" name="selectedSourceAttributes[0].sourceName" value="AuthoritiesRegulation" />
<TABLE>
<TBODY>
<TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d6d2c4">
<TD>
<SELECT id="selectedSourceAttributes0.mappedAttributes0.ma ppedAttributeNames"
multiple name="selectedSourceAttributes[0].mappedAttributes[0].mappedAttributeNames">
<OPTION value="CODE1">VALUE1</OPTION>
<OPTION value="CODE2">VALUE2</OPTION>
<OPTION value="CODE3">VALUE3</OPTION>

</SELECT>
<INPUT type="hidden"
name="_selectedSourceAttributes[0].mappedAttributes[0].mappedAttributeNames" value="1" />
</TD>
<TD>
<INPUT id="selectedSourceAttributes0.mappedAttributes0.cu stomAttributeName"
name="selectedSourceAttributes[0].mappedAttributes[0].customAttributeName" value="myInputValue00" />
</TD>
</TR>
</TBODY>
</TABLE>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD id="dynForm1">
<HR style="COLOR: #ba3209; HEIGHT: 3px" />
<INPUT type="hidden" name="selectedSourceAttributes[1].sourceName" value="Intranet" />
<TABLE>
<TBODY>
<TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d6d2c4">
<TD>
<SELECT id="selectedSourceAttributes1.mappedAttributes0.ma ppedAttributeNames"
multiple name="selectedSourceAttributes[1].mappedAttributes[0].mappedAttributeNames">
<OPTION value="CODE1">VALUE1</OPTION>
<OPTION value="CODE2">VALUE2</OPTION>
<OPTION value="CODE3">VALUE3</OPTION>

</SELECT>
<INPUT type="hidden"
name="_selectedSourceAttributes[1].mappedAttributes[0].mappedAttributeNames" value="1" />
</TD>
<TD>
<INPUT id="selectedSourceAttributes1.mappedAttributes0.cu stomAttributeName"
name="selectedSourceAttributes[1].mappedAttributes[0].customAttributeName" value="myInputValue10" />
</TD>
</TR>
</TBODY>
</TABLE>
</TD>
</TR>
</TBODY>
</TABLE>
<TABLE border="1">
<TBODY><TR><TD><INPUT type="submit" name="_eventId_next" value="Next" /></TD></TR></TBODY>
</TABLE>
<INPUT id="sourceCounter0" type="hidden" name="sourceCounter0" value="1" />
</FORM>



myObjectForm contains:
-> List<SourceAttributeForm> selectedSourceAttributes;
A SourceAttributeForm contains:
--> List<MappedAttributeForm> mappedAttributes and a sourceName (String)
A MappedAttributeForm contains :
--> String customAttributeName and a List<String> mappedAttributeNames



And when the request is submitted, the data mapped in myObjectForm is not correct, actually I get:
selectedSourceAttributes[0].mappedAttributes[0].customAttributeName="myInputValue10"
selectedSourceAttributes[1].mappedAttributes[0].customAttributeName="myInputValue10"

instead of having:
selectedSourceAttributes[0].mappedAttributes[0].customAttributeName="myInputValue00"
selectedSourceAttributes[1].mappedAttributes[0].customAttributeName="myInputValue10"

Can anyone explain what's going on here?

Thanks in advance,

Giorgio

[phamlen]

I'm not sure we could tell based on what you've posted here but I have some suggestions:

1) It might be worthwhile to look at the actual HttpServletRequest that's sent by the browser (lots of ways to find this - I usually set a breakpoint in the debugger on the setter in question and then walk up the stack until I get to the doPost call) That will determine if this is a problem in the HTML (it's generating the wrong stuff) or in the binding somehow.

2) I've had this problem in the past when I had the same object in the list twice (because then the setter is called twice and everything ends up with the last value)

3) If none of that works, I might add some logging code (or set the debugger breakpoint) in the setter to see what values it's being called with...

[Giorgio77]

Thanks for the response....indeed, I was looking at the wrong place to solve this problem.
The problem was that during the rendering of the form, I initialized the 'selectedSourceAttributes' collection with the SAME instance of the object (new MappedAttribute() ).
I just had to initialize this collection with different instances of MappedAttribute object.