Setting DynaActionForm before loading the form

Question

Hi, all,
There are many tutorials on how to set a form property to something in an action class after a form is submitted. However, how do you set items in a DynaActionForm in an action class before the jsp page is loaded? I have experimented with the following code in my action class, but it is still not getting set. Please tell me if you see anything wrong with my code or if I am barking up the wrong tree:
      FormBeanConfig formBeanConfig = mapping.getModuleConfig().findFormBeanConfig("shipForm");
      DynaActionFormClass dynaClass = DynaActionFormClass.createDynaActionFormClass(formBeanConfig);
      DynaValidatorForm thisForm = (DynaValidatorForm) dynaClass.newInstance();
      thisForm.set("shipType", "generic"); It seems that I have just made a DynaActionForm in the above code, but how do I make it THE form for the following page?
Thanks!

Answer 1

I have found some code out on the www, but It gives me an error:
      ModuleConfig moduleConfig = RequestUtils.getModuleConfig(request, getServlet().getServletContext());
      FormBeanConfig formConfig = moduleConfig.findFormBeanConfig("shipForm");
      DynaActionFormClass dynaClass = DynaActionFormClass.createDynaActionFormClass(formConfig);
      DynaActionForm thisForm = (DynaActionForm)dynaClass.newInstance();
      thisForm.set("shipType", "generic");
      request.setAttribute(mapping.getAttribute(), thisForm);  // gives error at this line!
// Partial Stacktrace:
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot call setAttribute with a null name
     org.apache.coyote.tomcat5.CoyoteRequest.setAttribute(CoyoteRequest.java:1439)
     org.apache.coyote.tomcat5.CoyoteRequestFacade.setAttribute(CoyoteRequestFacade.java:349)
     com.cdmtech.icodesweb.struts.action.ShipMaintenanceDispatchAction.selectShipAction(ShipMaintenanceDispatchAction.java:151)
        ...Right track? Wrong tree?