Struts MessageResources and Dependancies of Manager/Logic

[Andrew Leer]

Say I'm in a struts action:
to get the list of keys from ApplicationResources.properties, I do the following:

  
// Get the messageResources to access ApplicationResources.properties.
MessageResources messageResources = getResources(request);  

Now I understand that if I call messageResources.get(key) I will get back the requested property from ApplicationResources.properties.


Now suppose that a little later in the action I want to pass the messageResources object I just retrieved to a Manager/Logic class, so it can retrieve a key, but without making the Manager/Logic dependent on the Struts Framework.

Would I simply retrieve the value from the messageResources and pass it into the Manager/Logic method?
(this seems a little awkward since so many values are being passed this way)

Thank you,

- Andrew J. Leer

[Merrill Higginson]

Actually, the method on MessageResources that gets the message is getMessage(key) or getMessage(locale, key);

I don't see any other alternatives than the ones you've already presented. Either you make your manager object dependent on Struts and pass it the MessageResources object, or you have your action class get the message first and pass it in as a string to your manager class.

[Andrew Leer]

Well what about using a BeanUtils "Converter" implementation to convert only the necessary properties into a java.util.Properties object?

Is this feasable?

I only want to store all the messages (that relate to the same thing) in one place so I can change them throughout the entire application. (no redundancy)

[Merrill Higginson]

I think you're headed in the right direction. I'd use a ResourceBundle, though, instead of a Properties object. That way you still have i18n support. Just create the ResourceBundle like this:

ResourceBundle myResources = ResourceBundle.getBundle("ApplicationResources", currentLocale);

Then pass it in to your manager object. You can then use ResourceBundle'sh getString method to retrieve your messages. Since ResourceBundle is in java.util, you won't have any dependency issues.