Validating a group of input strings

[John Zwick]

I have 25 input boxes of which are grouped into 5 "messages", each containing 5 lines.
Any suggestions or tips on efficiently validating these text boxes? For example, Messages #2-5 cannot have any values unless Message #1 has values. Also, for a given message, a line can only have values if all the lines before it have values (for example, a message cannot contain values in line 1 and line 5 but not 2,3, or 4).

Is there a more efficient way of doing this without using a ton of if's? In my backend code, each line is assigned to a String object (e.g message2Line3)

    
<table width="100%">
		<tr>

			<th width="10%" align="right" valign="top">Message #1</th>
			<td width="90%" align="left"><input type="text" name="message1Line1" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""><br>
			<input type="text" name="message1Line2" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message1Line3" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message1Line4" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message1Line5" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""></td>
		</tr>

		<tr>
			<th width="10%" align="right" valign="top">Message #2</th>
			<td width="90%" align="left"><input type="text" name="message2Line1" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""><br>
			<input type="text" name="message2Line2" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message2Line3" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message2Line4" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message2Line5" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""></td>

		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th width="10%" align="right" valign="top">Message #3</th>
			<td width="90%" align="left"><input type="text" name="message3Line1" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""><br>
			<input type="text" name="message3Line2" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message3Line3" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message3Line4" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>

			<input type="text" name="message3Line5" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th width="10%" align="right" valign="top">Message #4</th>
			<td width="90%" align="left"><input type="text" name="message4Line1" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""><br>
			<input type="text" name="message4Line2" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message4Line3" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>

			<input type="text" name="message4Line4" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message4Line5" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th width="10%" align="right" valign="top">Message #5</th>
			<td width="90%" align="left"><input type="text" name="message5Line1" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""><br>
			<input type="text" name="message5Line2" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>

			<input type="text" name="message5Line3" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message5Line4" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""> <br>
			<input type="text" name="message5Line5" maxlength="90" size="90" value=""></td>
		</tr>
	</table>

[Sebastian Janisch]

Two loops will do it.

/*
 * iterates over the message blocks
 */
for(int i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
    /*
     * iterate over the fields in one block
     */
    for (int j = 1; j <=5; j++) {
    
    }
}

This should help you ... Post your code once it's done or you have further questions...

EDIT: instead of naming each block message1Line1, message1Line2 etc, name it simply message1. The container makes an array of it.