About the Oracle ADF Data Form Bean

All Oracle ADF Struts forms use a data form bean, an instance of oracle.adf.controller.struts.forms.BindingContainerActionForm (a subclass of org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm that implements the apache.commons.beanutils.DynaBean interface). The data form bean dynamically makes the attributes for any binding container available to the form and saves you the work of creating the ActionForm beans required by your applications.

When you drag and drop a data binding from the Data Control Palette to a JSP page, JDeveloper automatically refers to the Oracle ADF data form bean. For each value binding in the associated binding container, JDeveloper dynamically creates the get and set methods for each binding.

When JDeveloper creates a data form bean, it also makes these changes to the struts-config.xml file:

Adds a form bean named "DataForm" under the <form-beans> element
Adds the value "DataForm" to the <name> element of the associated Action

Note: JDeveloper does not populate the <form-property> element in the struts-config.xml file when it uses the data form bean. Your application retrieves the necessary values from the associated binding container.

At runtime the associated action class, either a data action (instance of oracle.struts.adf.controller.struts.actions.DataAction) or data page (instance of oracle.struts.adf.controller.struts.actions.DataForwardAction) uses the data form bean to populate the form and submit updates, if any.

Here is an html:form code snippet that can be used to illustrate data form bean behavior:

<html:form action="MyDataAction.do"> <html:text property="dname">
</html:form>

At runtime the MyDataAction class needs to resolve the "dname" property. In Oracle ADF, the html form is tied the associated action, which is tied to the data form bean. The form goes to the data form bean to resolve the property. The data form bean in turn asks the binding container if it has a binding with that name. The binding container returns the binding if it exists, and the data form populates the html form with that binding's value.

Warning: Do not modify, rename, or remove the DataForm class or the DataForm entries in the struts-config.xml file. To work correctly throughout the application, this bean name must not be changed in any way. "DataForm" is a reserved FormBean name in Oracle ADF.

For javadoc on the classes and interfaces used for the data form bean, see:

oracle.adf.controller.struts.forms.BindingContainerActionForm
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/beanutils/api/org/apache/commons/beanutils/DynaBean.html
http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/api/org/apache/struts/action/ActionForm.html

You can also view the source code for any class in the technology scope of your application by selecting Navigate > Go to Java Class from the main JDeveloper menu and entering the class name in the dialog's text field.