design pattern question - deriving form beans from model object?

[Donald Ball]

Hi guys. I've got a struts application design question for the group. 
I've got a webapp which guides the user through creating a large model 
object. The process takes several pages - each page has its own form 
bean which is used to update the model object (which has no real notion 
that it's in a struts app) - pretty standard stuff, I think.

I'd like to offer the ability to load and save the model objects. That's 
relatively straightforward, but I'm not sure how to handle the struts 
objects. Upon loading a new model object and putting it in the user's 
session, I need to arrange to have form beans whose values represent the 
current state of the model object put in the proper places. Otherwise, 
when the user pages through the app, they'll see the default empty 
values on the forms, not the model object's values.

I guess I see two basic strategies. I could save all of the ActionForm 
objects along with the underlying model object, or I could make some 
sort of adapter class which creates (derives?) form beans for a given 
model object. The latter option is more work, but it seems cleaner in 
the long run. My problem is, I don't know where to put that component or 
when to activate it, I'm a little fuzzy on when and how new ActionForm 
instances are places in the expected contexts.

It would seem that this design pattern wouldn't be uncommon for larger 
struts webapps. What do y'all recommend?

- donald

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