Struts

Struts Framework
Objectives
Understand the need for Struts
Identify the components of Struts framework
© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 2

Agenda
Web Technologies Overview
Case Study Introduction
Building Blocks
Validation

Web Technologies – An Overview
Static content – HTML
Dynamic content – CGI, ASP, PHP
Java servlets brought platform independence to web
It suffered from:
Coding is complex
Presentation and biz logic are tightly coupled
Difficult to maintain
JSP
Embeds Java into HTML
Simplifies coding
Custom tags for asset reuse
Separation of concerns (site developers/coders)

Web Application – Architectures
Model 1 Architecture
Client Tier Web Tier Data Tier
Web Container
JSP
Providing
Presentation,
Database
Flow Control
And
Business Logic

Web Application – Architecture (continued)
Model 2 –
MVC Architecture
Key Features
• Application flow is mediated
by a central Controller
• Controller acts as a single entry
point
• Controller interacts with Model
• Controller delegates requests and
forwards to target views
• Reusability, extensibility, modularity
and easy maintainability

Web Application Framework
A Framework
Is an extensible/generic/flexible architecture
Focuses on a specific domain (web / j2ee applications etc.)
Provides extension points
Can be customized and used on projects

What is the Struts Framework?
Used to create web applications
Uses
JavaBeans
Java servlets
Java Server pages (JSP)
Based on the MVC design pattern
Rich set of tag libraries provided for presentation tier
Extensible

Why Struts?
Broad community acceptance
Easy to learn
One of the earliest open source frameworks
Relatively stable with respect to other frameworks
Constantly evolving
Wide range of books / training material available
Blessing of infrastructure providers (BEA / IBM / Sun)

Struts Framework – Case Study
Background – Requirements
XYZ organization needs a web based ‘User Management’ application
with the following functionalities
Provide a user registration functionality
Display all the register users
Proposed Solution:
Design a simple application based on our existing knowledge on JSP and
servlets using Struts Framework.

Struts Framework – Building Blocks
Introduction
Controller: ActionServlet
Model: Action, Business Layer
View: JSPs

(one time) digest struts-config.xml
[configuration file]
1.1 get mapping

Action Mapping
Action
Action Servlet 2 dispatch [Model]
1 event
[Controller]
HTTP Request
1.2 create 2.1 (can) use
Action Form
Client
Browser
2.4 use 2.3 create

3 forward Action Forward 2.2 interact
JSP
[View] 3.1 (can) interact Business Layer
4 update [Model]
HTTP Response

Building Blocks
Basic Struts Components:
Action Servlet
struts-config.xml
Action Mapping
Action Form
Action Class
Action Forward
JSPs
Additional Components:
Action Messages
Resource Bundle
web.xml

Putting The Blocks Together – Action Servlet
1.1 get mapping

Action Mapping
Action
1 event Action Servlet 2 dispatch
[Controller]
HTTP Request
Action Form
Client
Browser
2.4 use 2.3 create

JSP
4 update [Model]
HTTP Response

Action Servlet – Controller
Controller in the struts architecture
Maps the incoming requests to the actions
Mappings configurable in XML based file
ActionServlet creates an ActionForm and uses an Action
ActionServlet is a part of Struts framework

Putting the Blocks Together – Struts Configuration

1.1 get mapping

Action Mapping
Action
1 event Action Servlet 2 dispatch [Model]
[Controller]
HTTP Request
Action Form
Client
Browser
2.4 use 2.3 create
JSP
4 update [Model]
HTTP Response
Struts configuration digested by Controller Servlet

Struts Configuration
Main control file in the Struts framework

Digested at startup by the ActionServlet
Typically, the file is called ‘struts_config.xml’
Typically, it is placed in the WEB-INF directory of the web
application

Sample

Putting the Blocks Together – Action Mapping
1.1 get mapping

Action Mapping
Action
[Controller]
HTTP Request
Action Form
Client
Browser
2.4 use 2.3 create

JSP
4 update [Model]
HTTP Response

Action Mapping
In the struts configuration file
All action mappings are contained under
<action-mappings> node in the configuration
Each action is represented by <action> node
ActionMapping associates requests with actions
ActionMappings contain one or more ActionForwards
Action Mapping objects are created and used by Action Servlet

Putting the Blocks Together – ActionForm
1.1 get mapping

Action Mapping
Action
[Controller]
HTTP Request
Action Form
Client
Browser
2.4 use 2.3 create

JSP
4 update [Model]
HTTP Response

ActionForm
Java bean class with setters and getters
Represent the data entered in the web application
Extend ActionForm to create custom classes
Requires no specific methods to be implemented
Beans can either be coarse or fine grained
Same form can be reused in different actions
Offers a standard validation mechanism

ActionForm Considerations
ActionForms are stored in various scopes
Page
Request
Session
Application
The scope is specified in the Struts configuration file
Always limit the scope to the bare minimum
Request scope should be used for majority of forms

UserForm.java

Putting the Blocks Together – Action Class

1.1 get mapping

Action Mapping
Action
[Controller]
HTTP Request
Action Form
Client
Browser
2.4 use 2.3 create
JSP
4 update [Model]
HTTP Response

Action Class
The goal of an Action class is
Process the incoming request by interacting with the business layer
Return an ActionForward object that identifies the resource to which
control should be forwarded
The Action class defines an execute method that you override
public ActionForward execute(

ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception;

Execute Method
A typical Action class can implement the following logic in its execute
method
Validate the current state of the user's session
Perform any business level validations
Process the incoming request
Update the server-side objects to create the next page
Return an appropriate ActionForward object that identifies the JSP page
to be used to generate this response, based on the newly updated
beans

SaveUserAction.java

Considerations
Only one instance of your Action class is created and used for all
requests
Therefore they need to be thread safe
Exceptions thrown from execute() method should be appropriately
logged
Consider using custom actions to simplify coding
DispatchAction
ForwardAction

Putting the Blocks Together – Action Forwards
1.1 get mapping

Action Mapping
Action
[Controller]
HTTP Request
Action Form
Client
Browser
2.4 use 2.3 create

JSP
4 update [Model]
HTTP Response

Action Forwards
ActionForward associates a logical name with a system path
Action returns an ActionForward to the controller
Two kinds of ActionForwards provided by the Struts

Global forward
Visible to any Action object throughout the application
Application can have any number of global action forwards
Local forward
Available to the Action object associated with ActionMapping
An action mapping can have any number of local forwards
Local action forwards always take precedence

Consideration
Actions are flexible and can return any number of different forwards
depending on the circumstances
Action needs to know the logical name of the forward
e.g. "success" or "failure“

Putting the Blocks Together – JSP
1.1 get mapping

Action Mapping
Action
[Controller]
HTTP Request
Action Form
Client
Browser
2.2 interact
2.4 use 2.3 create
3 forward Action Forward
JSP
4 update [Model]
HTTP Response

JSPs As View
Struts uses JSPs as View component.
Several special-purpose JSP tag libraries are also defined by Struts
Tag library simplifies the HTML specification of input components

RegisterForm.jsp

Additional Components
web.xml
Is the deployment descriptor for web applications
For a pure struts application little configuration is required
Configure ActionServlet as a startup servlet
Configure action servlet mappings
Configure tag libraries
Configure any additional J2EE resource

Sample

Struts Application – Simple 5 Step Process
1. Create and edit the web app deployment descriptor (web.xml)
2. Create and edit the struts-config.xml file with appropriate action
and form mapping.
3. Write a Java class extending Struts Action class.
1. Provide the business functionality in the ‘execute()’ method.
4. Write a JavaBean class extending Struts ActionForm class
5. Write the HTML based view elements in a JSP.

Struts Framework – Validation Strategy
Objectives
To know the validation strategies in struts framework

To understand the manual validation and its disadvantages

Form Validation Strategy
Manual Validation
Do validation in the Action
Must write validation rules yourself
Do validation in the form bean
Using the validate method
Automatic validation
Using Validation framework
Handles many common cases

Using Manual Validation
Put validation code in bean
Insert <html:errors/> in input form
Override validate method in ActionForm class
Drawbacks associated with Manual Validation

Repeats same logic many times
Embedded in Java code
Violates Struts strategy of configuring and reuse editable XML files

Manual Validation – Validate method
---------
17public class UserForm extends ValidatorActionForm {
18 private String firstName;
19 private String lastName;
29---------* @return Returns the age.
30 */
31 public String getAge() {
32 return age;
33 }
34 ------------
----------------
133 public ActionErrors validate(ActionMapping mapping,
134 HttpServletRequest request)
135 {
136 ActionErrors lErrors = new ActionErrors();
137 if(getLoginId() == null || getLoginId().length() <= 0) {
138 lErrors.add(getLoginId(),new
ActionError("errors.required","Login Id"));
139 }
140
141 return lErrors;
142}
-------------------
Struts HTML tag ‘<html:errors/>’ should be embedded in the
JSP page.

Sample Output Screen
Validation messages
With empty fields

click of Registration
button

Where to go from here?
Struts User Guide
http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/userGuide/index.html
Struts Controller UML diagrams
http://rollerjm.free.fr/pro/Struts.html
The Apache Struts Application Framework
http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/
About Tiles
http://www.lifl.fr/~dumoulin/tiles/doc/tutorial.html
http://www.theserverside.com/resources/strutsreview.jsp

Questions

Struts

Încărcat de

Informații document

Descriere originală:

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Struts

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Struts Framework

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 2

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 3

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 4

Client Tier Web Tier Data Tier

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 5

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 6

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 7

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 8

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 9

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 11

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 13

1.1 get mapping

2.4 use 2.3 create

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 14

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 15

1.1 get mapping

2.4 use 2.3 create

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 16

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 17

(one time) digest struts-config.xml

1.1 get mapping

Struts configuration digested by Controller Servlet

Main control file in the Struts framework

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 19

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 20

1.1 get mapping

2.4 use 2.3 create

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 21

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 22

1.1 get mapping

2.4 use 2.3 create

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 23

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 24

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 25

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 26

(one time) digest struts-config.xml

1.1 get mapping

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 27

public ActionForward execute(

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 28

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 29

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 30

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 31

1.1 get mapping

2.4 use 2.3 create

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 32

Two kinds of ActionForwards provided by the Struts

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 33

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 34

1.1 get mapping

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 35

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 36

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 37

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 38

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 39

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 40

To know the validation strategies in struts framework

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 42

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 43

Drawbacks associated with Manual Validation

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 44

© Copyright 2006 Sapient Corporation 46