Different Types of Form Bean in Struts 1.X

Updated on June 28, 2020 by Mukesh Kumar

What is Form Bean :

A form bean is a type of Java bean. A form bean is an instance of a subclass of an ActionForm class and other FormBean class, which stores HTML form data from a submitted client request or that can store input data from a Struts action link that a user clicked.
You can divide Form Beans into two types.

1. Static Forms
2. Dynamic Forms

Static Forms :

There are three types of Static Forms.

• ActionForm
• ValidatorForm
• ValidatorActionForm

When you are using the Static Form, you need to do the following things.

• You need to write a Java class by extending one of the above mentioned Static Forms.
• You need to declare the fields same as JSP forms.
• You need to write the set/get methods for all the fields.
• If you want to validate form data you need to override the validate() method in the Form Bean class.
• If you want to reset your form fields ,you need to override the reset() method in the Form Bean class.

Dynamic Forms :

There are three types of Dynamic Forms.

• DynaActionForm
• DynaValidatorForm
• DynaValidatorActionForm

When you are using the Dynamic Form, you need to do the following things

• Write the field declaration inside the struts configuration file(No need to write Java class with private field and set/get method).
• DynamicForms will reset automatically to default values(No need to override reset method).
• Dynamic forms will use validation framework for the form validations (No need to override the validate method)

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