Sturts 2

Struts in Action

Struts in Action
Building web applications with the leading Java framework
Ted Husted
Cedric Dumoulin George Franciscus David Winterfeldt

MANNING
Greenwich (74° w. long.)

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The following figures were adapted from other Manning books: figure 2.1 from Swing by Matthew Robinson and Pavel Vorobiev (figure 1.3); figures 2.8, 10.6, 11.1, and 11.2 from Web Development with JavaServer Pages Second Edition by Duane Fields and Mark Kolb (figures 10.1, 10.5, 6.2, and10.4). Figure 2.9 by Jean-Michel Garnier is reproduced with permission from the Apache Software Foundation.

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ISBN 1-930110-50-2 Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – VHG – 05 04 03 02

brief contents
PART 1 GETTING STARTED WITHSTRUTS ........................ 1
1 2 3 4
I

Introduction

3 29 105 59

I

Exploring the Struts architecture Building a simple application Configuring Struts components

I

I

PART 2 RAISING YOUR FRAMEWORK ............................. 145
5 6 7 8 9
I

Coping with ActionForms

147 183 193 207

I

Wiring with ActionForwards Working with Action objects ExtendingActionServlet

I

Designing with ActionMappings 255

I

I

PART 3 BUILDING YOUR PAGES .................................... 265
10
I

Displaying dynamic content

267

v

vi

BRIEF CONTENTS

11 12 13 14

I

Developing applications with Tiles Validating user input 365 Localizing content 409 Using data services with Struts 437

319

I

I

I

PART 4 STRUTS BY EXAMPLE......................................... 473
15 16 17
I

Artimus: pulling out the stops Velocity: replacing JSPs 555

475

I

Redux: migrating to Struts 1.1 533

I

contents
foreword xix preface xxiii acknowledgments xxvi about this book xxviii

PART 1 GETTING STARTED WITH STRUTS ..................... 1

1

Introduction 3
1.1 What is this book about? 4
Who makes the Strutssoftware? 4 Why is it called Struts? 5
I

Why is Struts open source?

5

1.2 1.3

What are application frameworks? 5
Other types of frameworks 6
I

Enabling technologies 6
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 7 Common Gateway Interface (CGI) 8 Java servlets 9 JavaServer Pages 10 JSP tags 11 JavaBeans 12 Model 2 14
I I I I

1.4

Struts from 30,000 feet 14
Building a simple application16 Jump-starting development 16 Where the rubber meets the road 18 Looking back 24
I I

1.5

Summary

28

vii

viii

CONTENTS

2

Exploring the Struts architecture 29
2.1 2.2 Talking the talk 30
I

Why we need Struts 30
One step back, three steps forward 30 Enter Struts Struts controller components 31 Developing a web application with Struts 36
I

31

2.3

Why we...