WebObjects field validation

Question

I'm trying to find a good way to do field validation in a WebObjects app. If I have a text field and I tie a number formatter to it, it seems that the default behavior is to parse out the number IF the user enters in a valid number, or, if the user enters an invalid number, it seems to just ignore the value entered by the user. I can't do the validation in a save method or an action method because WO will have already ignored the non-number input by the time it reaches the action method. Is there a standard/recommended way, in a WebObjects app, of validating user input such that the user can be alerted of invalid input, rather than just ignoring the invalid input?

This page: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WebObjects/EOF/Using_EOF/Validation claims that WO and EOF have "an incredible array of validation mechanisms" and even hints that there is a built-in way to prevent the user from entering inappropriate data, but I haven't been able to find any documentation or examples of how to do that (if there is, in fact, a built-in way). Coming up with a custom javascript validator to prevent inappropriate data seems like it would be a nightmare - finding a way to make the JS recognize and handle all of the same edge cases that the backend formatters/parsers handle. It would be nice if WO really did have a built-in way to propagate the formatter edge cases over to JS validation.

The above link also says there is a validationFailedWithException method in WOComponent that gets called "when an EO or formatter failed validation during an assignment", but how can I make a formatter fail validation in the non-number example case above? I've tried having the formatter throw an exception in the parse method if a non-number is entered, but that exception doesn't get passed to the validationFailedWithException method. Does anyone know how I can trigger an exception in a formatter that will trigger a call to validationFailedWithException()? And is that even the best/recommended way? Does anyone know of a better way?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure, that validationFailedWithException is getting called for every formatting error. You should receive there an NSValidationException that wraps a ParseException. The method is usually called on the component containing the binding. It may get skipped on caret (^) bindings.

All the standard number formatter already throw a ParseException (see Format.parse(String)).

The validation handling in WebObjects can get quite complex, it really depends on your needs. But it was designed without JavaScript or Ajax in mind. Newer approaches in Wonder may incorporate the client side, but I have no experience with it.

The normal validation sequence is:

• if needed convert the input into the target type with a formatter
• call a validateAttributeName method on the target object, where AttributeName is the attribute name to receive the value

When something fails in this sequence validationFailedWithException is called.

While saving an enterprise object "validateFor..." is called on the objects. An exception at this point has to be caught in your action method.

So you have two points to handle validation errors. The "syntactical" errors have to be handled in validationFailedWithException. After this point you have valid inputs. You may manually further check those or greater object structures in your action method or in validateFor... (e.g. validateForSave).