topic PropertyNotFoundException in form in Alfresco Archive

PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:24:48 GMT

I am trying to map JavaBean properties to form properties as described in the user guide.<userTask id="order" name="order" activiti:formKey="order.form"><documentation>order</documentation> <extensionElements><activiti:formProperty id="quantity" variable="quantity" e

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:15:10 GMT

Hi,

The "variable" attribute means that the value should be fetched from variable ${quantity}. You should just remove the variable attribute, if you're using the expression.

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:39:21 GMT

I tried it, but it does not work.

This is what I did:
<activiti:formProperty id="quantity" expression="#{order.quantity}" required="true" type="long" />

Do you have any other suggestions?

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:36:40 GMT

Does your order-bean actually have a getQuantity()? The ELResolver resolves part by part, so when he's complaining about 'quantity' it might as well be the '.quantity' in 'order.quantity'…

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:30:51 GMT

I double checked, getQuantity is there.
I renamed quantity to thequantity like this:

<activiti:formProperty id="thequantity" expression="#{order.quantity}" required="true" type="long" />

Now Activiti throws a PropertyNotFoundException for thequantity.
In the form ${order.quantity} works but not ${thequantity}.

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:50:37 GMT

Thats really strange… Could you perhaps create a test-case for this (http://activiti.org/userguide/index.html#apiUnitTesting), because I checked the code that is responsible for getting/setting form-property values, and error shouldn't occur when expression is filled in.

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:01:09 GMT

Yes, but that might take a while.
I am using Activiti 5.2. Could that be the reason?

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:05:21 GMT

Hi,

Thats a possibility, although I don't see any changes to that are on first sight in SVN history…

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:19:53 GMT

Do I have to declare the taks form properties before they can be used?

The userguide says:
"So there is no need to declare task form properties if they match 1-1 with the process variables."

But what if they don't match 1-1 as in my case?

I never declared the task form properties and they are not submitted during the startEvent.
Could that be the problem?

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:32:00 GMT

Not really sure shat you mean.

"So there is no need to declare task form properties if they match 1-1 with the process variables."

If you submit form-property values (in the Map<String, String>) for which no formProperty is defined in the process-definition, the form property value is just submitted (string) variable with the name of the variable equal to the id of the property (key in the map).

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:55:09 GMT

I mean that I don't declare the task form properties anywhere. The only occurences are shown below in red.
The process is started using the Activiti Explorer. So thequantity is not provided by the caller when the process starts.

order.bpmn2.0.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<definitions xmlns="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL"
   xmlns:activiti="http://activiti.org/bpmn"
   xmlns:bpmndi="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/DI"
   xmlnsmgdc="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DC"
   xmlnsmgdi="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DI"
   xmlns:signavio="http://www.signavio.com"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   expressionLanguage="http://www.w3.org/1999/XPath"
   id="sid-95da716d-f515-46b8-8677-56a60dbc13c5"
   targetNamespace="http://www.signavio.com/bpmn20"
   typeLanguage="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/20100501/BPMN20.xsd">

   <process id="order" isClosed="false" isExecutable="true" name="order" processType="None">

      <startEvent id="start" name="Start"/>

      <sequenceFlow id="flow4" sourceRef="start" targetRef="init"/>

      <scriptTask id="init" name="Init" scriptFormat="groovy">
         <script>
         order = new org.example.Order(quantity:2)
         </script>
      </scriptTask>

      <sequenceFlow id="flow3" sourceRef="init" targetRef="placeorder"/>

      <userTask id="placeorder" name="Place order" activiti:formKey="order.form">
         <documentation>order</documentation>
         <extensionElements>
             <activiti:formProperty id="thequantity" expression="#{order.quantity}" />
         </extensionElements>
         <potentialOwner>…</potentialOwner>
      </userTask>

      <sequenceFlow id="flow2" sourceRef="placeorder" targetRef="orderfood"/>

      <scriptTask id="orderfood" name="Order food" scriptFormat="groovy">
         <script>outrint "Ordering $order.quantity\n"</script>
      </scriptTask>

      <sequenceFlow id="flow1" sourceRef="orderfood" targetRef="end"/>

      <endEvent id="end" name="End"/>

   </process>

</definitions>

order.form
<h1>order</h1>
Quantity is ${thequantity}

Is this really enough to map process variables to task form properties?

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:20:22 GMT

I see what you are trying to do here… You're mixing up the built-in rendering (that only resolves variables in the HTML expressions, in your order.form) with the form-properties. Form properties should be used when you want to render your own forms, not using getRendered(Start)Form. So the error resulted from rendering the form, rather than getting the form-properties.

Basically, you should decide wether you want to use built-in form rendering (eg. html-forms used in explorer) or use form-properties which you declare with the activiti:formProperty.

Check out http://activiti.org/userguide/index.html#forms -> Built in vs. form properties

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:44:02 GMT

Ah, I see. Thanks.

I am trying to implement an external UI so using form-properties is basically the right approach.
Since my client is external to the Activiti/Tomcat deployment I wanted to use the REST interface (activiti-rest).

When I try that I am getting the same exception:

PropertyNotFoundException: Cannot find property thequantity

Aren't the form-properties exposed via the REST-API?

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:17:59 GMT

In the 5.4 release, they are You shouldn't use the *.form files (and formKey) if you want external rendering

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 08:59:32 GMT

That's good news. I'll wait for the 5.4. release then.
By the way, are there any plans to expose the serialized JavaBeans via the REST interface as well?
For external UI-Clients it would be great not to be limited to to the flat form-property representation but also having access to the complex process data.

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:07:48 GMT

Nothing planned in that direction… but the form-type mechanism is pluggable. So you could easily write a FormType that handles conversion of serializable -> String and visa versa.

see org.activiti.engine.impl.form.AbstractFormType, ProcessEngineConfigurationImpl.customFormTypes

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:53:04 GMT

Is it possible to plug-in a custom form type via configuration?
Or do I have to change the Activiti sourcecode?

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:12:45 GMT

It can be done using configuration, ProcessEngineConfigurationImpl.customFormTypes:


<bean id="processEngineConfiguration" class="org.activiti.engine.impl.cfg.StandaloneProcessEngineConfiguration">
    …
    <property name="customFormTypes">
       <list>
         <ref bean="myFormType"/>
       </list>
    </property>
    …

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

kaech — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 06:54:26 GMT

I implemented a custom form type derived from AbstractFormType and declared it in activiti.cfg.xml of the activiti-rest application as you described in your previous post.

The method getName returns order as the name.

In the process definition I added

<activiti:formProperty id="theorder" expression="#{order}" type="order"/>

to expose the whole order class as a form property.
When I upload the process I get the message unknown type 'order' ….

How do I have to define the formProperty in order to let Actitivi use my custom form type class?

Re: PropertyNotFoundException in form

frederikherema1 — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:33:01 GMT

Adding your type to the custom from-types should do the trick:


protected void initFormTypes() {
    if (formTypes==null) {
      formTypes = new FormTypes();
      formTypes.addFormType(new StringFormType());
      formTypes.addFormType(new LongFormType());
      formTypes.addFormType(new DateFormType("dd/MM/yyyy"));
    }
    if (customFormTypes!=null) {
      for (AbstractFormType customFormType: customFormTypes) {
        formTypes.addFormType(customFormType);
      }
    }
  }

Do you get the error when deploying? or when running the process?