Professional Jakarta Struts

by James Goodwill (Virtuas Solutions, Englewood, Colorado); Richard Hightower (Trivera Technologies, Tucson, AZ)

• ISBN13: 9780764558375
• ISBN10: 0764558374
• Copyright: 2003-11-01
• Publisher: Wrox

Summary

What is this book about? The Apache Software Foundation's Jakarta Struts remains the most popular Java framework for building enterprise-level Web applications. In the first book to cover the extensive new features of the final release of Struts 1.1, the authors present the technical and conceptual information you need to design, build, and deploy sophisticated Struts 1.1 applications. What does this book cover? This book covers everything you need to know about Struts and its supporting technologies, including JSPs, servlets, Web applications, the Jakarta-Tomcat JSP/servlet container, and much more. Here are just a few of the things you'll find in this book: The Jakarta Struts Model 2 architecture and its supporting components How to get started with Struts and build your own components How to work with the Commons Validator, ActionForms, and DynaActionForms Techniques for customizing the Controlle Ways to maximize your presentation pages with Tiles How to internationalize your Struts applications Tips for managing errors and debugging Struts applications Who is this book for? This book is for Java developers who want to build sophisticated, enterprise-level Web applications using the final production release of Struts 1.1.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. x
Introducing the Jakarta Struts Project and Its Supporting Components	p. 1
The Jakarta Struts Project	p. 1
Understanding the MVC Design Pattern	p. 2
The Struts Implementation of the MVC	p. 3
Web Applications	p. 5
The Directory Structure	p. 6
The Web Application Deployment Descriptor	p. 7
Packaging a Web Application	p. 8
The Tomcat JSP/Servlet Container	p. 8
Installing and Configuring Tomcat	p. 8
Testing Your Tomcat Installation	p. 9
What's Next?	p. 11
An Overview of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages Architectures	p. 13
The Java Servlet Architecture	p. 13
The GenericServlet and HttpServlet Classes	p. 15
The Lifecycle of a Servlet	p. 15
Building a Servlet	p. 16
The ServletContext	p. 25
Using Servlets to Retrieve HTTP Data	p. 25
What Are JavaServer Pages?	p. 30
The Components of a JavaServer Page	p. 31
What's Next	p. 53
Getting Started with Struts	p. 55
Obtaining and Installing the Jakarta Struts Archive	p. 55
Creating Your First Struts Application	p. 56
Creating the Views	p. 57
Creating the Controller Components	p. 62
Deploying Your Struts Application	p. 66
Walking through the ch03app Web Application	p. 68
What's Next	p. 71
Actions and ActionServlet	p. 73
The ActionServlet Class	p. 73
Configuring the ActionServlet	p. 75
The Action Class	p. 78
Extending the Action Class	p. 79
Implementing the execute() Method	p. 79
Configuring the Action Class	p. 81
Struts Plugins	p. 83
init()	p. 84
destroy()	p. 84
Creating a Plugin	p. 84
Configuring a Plugin	p. 86
The RequestProcessor	p. 87
Creating Your Own RequestProcessor	p. 87
Configuring an Extended RequestProcessor	p. 89
What's Next	p. 90
Advanced Action Classes	p. 91
ForwardAction and Beyond	p. 91
Linking to JSP Directly: More than Just Bad Design	p. 92
Linking to Global Forwards Instead of Actions	p. 92
Using the forward Attribute vs. ForwardAction	p. 93
Don't Bleed Your V into Your C	p. 94
Forwards for Legacy Access	p. 94
IncludeAction	p. 96
DispatchAction	p. 97
LookupDispatchAction	p. 100
SwitchAction	p. 102
What's Next	p. 104
Building the Presentation Layer	p. 105
Building a Struts View	p. 105
JSPs That Gather Data	p. 106
ActionForm Beans	p. 109
The Steps of a Struts Form Submission	p. 110
An Alternative ActionForm:DynaActionForm Bean	p. 111
What's Next	p. 116
Debugging Struts Applications	p. 117
Eclipse	p. 117
Installing the Tomcat Plugin	p. 118
Debugging Your Struts Application with Eclipse	p. 121
IntelliJ	p. 129
Configuring Tomcat	p. 129
Configuring IntelliJ	p. 130
What's Next?	p. 141
Working with Custom ActionMappings	p. 143
What Is an ActionMapping?	p. 143
Creating a Custom ActionMapping	p. 145
Creating an ActionMapping Extension for the wroxstruts Application	p. 146
Using the ch08.WROXActionMapping Extension in the worxapp Application	p. 147
Deploying the ch08.WROXActionMapping Extension	p. 148
What's Next	p. 150
Internationalizing Your Struts Applications	p. 151
i18n Components of a Struts Application	p. 151
The Controller	p. 151
The View	p. 153
Internationalizing the worxapp Application	p. 154
What's Next	p. 158
Managing Errors	p. 159
Struts Error Management	p. 159
ActionError	p. 159
ActionErrors	p. 161
Adding Error Handling to the wroxapp Application	p. 162
The ActionForm.validate() Method	p. 163
[left angle bracket]html:errors/[right angle bracket]	p. 165
Error Management in the Action.execute() Method	p. 167
What's Next?	p. 170
Integrating the Jakarta Commons Database Connection Pool (DBCP)	p. 171
What Is the Commons DBCP?	p. 171
Integrating the DBCP into Your Struts Application	p. 171
Creating a Sample Database	p. 172
Using the DBCP in Your Struts Application	p. 173
What's Next	p. 179
Working with the Validator	p. 181
Getting Started with the Validator Framework	p. 182
Understanding the Standard Steps	p. 183
Understanding the Validator Framework	p. 186
An Overview of the Standard Rules	p. 190
Using Two Rules on the Same Field (the maxfield Rule)	p. 190
Using the Mask Rule	p. 192
Constants	p. 195
Working with Dates	p. 196
Making Fields Required	p. 197
Working with E-Mail and Credit Cards	p. 197
Extending Validate and Custom Validation in the Validate Method of an Action	p. 198
Writing Your Own Rules	p. 199
Working with DynaActionForms	p. 203
Working with Client-Side JavaScript	p. 204
Canceling JavaScript validate	p. 205
Using a Workflow Form	p. 205
i18n for Validation	p. 213
Summary	p. 213
Using Tiles	p. 215
The Tiles Framework	p. 216
Clarification of Terms	p. 216
Creating a Tile Layout	p. 219
Using a Tile Layout	p. 222
Creating a Definition	p. 224
Creating and Using a JSP Definition	p. 224
Creating and Using an XML Definition	p. 227
Understanding Tile Scope	p. 228
Understanding Lists	p. 232
Using putList in XML	p. 232
Using the List in the Tile Layout	p. 233
Using putList in JSP	p. 235
Extending Definitions	p. 236
Nesting Tiles	p. 237
Creating a Visual Component	p. 238
Using the Visual Component	p. 239
Using a Tile as a Parameter to Another Tile	p. 239
Tile Controllers	p. 240
Using a Tile as an ActionForward	p. 242
What's Next	p. 243
Developing a Complete Struts Application	p. 245
The Employees Application Definition	p. 245
Preparing the employees Application	p. 245
Creating the employees Model	p. 250
Building the Employees Application	p. 261
Walkthrough	p. 287
What's Next?	p. 289
The struts-config.xml File	p. 291
The Struts Sub-Elements	p. 292
The [left angle bracket]icon/[right angle bracket] Sub-Element	p. 293
The [left angle bracket]display-name/[right angle bracket] Sub-Element	p. 294
The [left angle bracket]description/[right angle bracket] Sub-Element	p. 294
The [left angle bracket]set-property/[right angle bracket] Sub-Element	p. 294
Adding a DataSource	p. 295
Adding FormBean Definitions	p. 296
Adding Global Exceptions	p. 297
Adding Global Forwards	p. 298
Adding Actions	p. 299
Adding Controller Elements	p. 301
Adding Message Resources	p. 302
Adding Plugins	p. 303
What's Next	p. 303
The HTML Tag Library	p. 305
Installing the HTML Tags	p. 305
[left angle bracket]html:base/[right angle bracket]	p. 306
[left angle bracket]html:button/[right angle bracket]	p. 306
[left angle bracket]html:cancel/[right angle bracket]	p. 308
[left angle bracket]html:checkbox/[right angle bracket]	p. 309
[left angle bracket]html:errors/[right angle bracket]	p. 311
[left angle bracket]html:file/[right angle bracket]	p. 312
[left angle bracket]html:form/[right angle bracket]	p. 314
[left angle bracket]html:hidden/[right angle bracket]	p. 315
[left angle bracket]html:html/[right angle bracket]	p. 316
[left angle bracket]html:image/[right angle bracket]	p. 317
[left angle bracket]html:img/[right angle bracket]	p. 319
[left angle bracket]html:javascript/[right angle bracket]	p. 321
[left angle bracket]html:link/[right angle bracket]	p. 322
[left angle bracket]html:messages/[right angle bracket]	p. 325
[left angle bracket]html:multibox/[right angle bracket]	p. 325
[left angle bracket]html:option/[right angle bracket]	p. 327
[left angle bracket]html:options/[right angle bracket]	p. 328
[left angle bracket]html:optionsCollection/[right angle bracket]	p. 329
[left angle bracket]html:password/[right angle bracket]	p. 329
[left angle bracket]html:radio/[right angle bracket]	p. 331
[left angle bracket]html:reset/[right angle bracket]	p. 333
[left angle bracket]html:rewrite/[right angle bracket]	p. 335
[left angle bracket]html:select/[right angle bracket]	p. 336
[left angle bracket]html:submit/[right angle bracket]	p. 338
[left angle bracket]html:text/[right angle bracket]	p. 339
[left angle bracket]html:textarea/[right angle bracket]	p. 341
[left angle bracket]html:xhtml/[right angle bracket]	p. 343
The Tiles Tag Library	p. 345
Installing the Tiles Tags	p. 345
[left angle bracket]tiles:insert/[right angle bracket]	p. 346
[left angle bracket]tiles:definition/[right angle bracket]	p. 347
[left angle bracket]tiles:put/[right angle bracket]	p. 347
[left angle bracket]tiles:putList/[right angle bracket]	p. 348
[left angle bracket]tiles:add/[right angle bracket]	p. 349
[left angle bracket]tiles:get/[right angle bracket]	p. 349
[left angle bracket]tiles:getAsString/[right angle bracket]	p. 350
[left angle bracket]tiles:useAttribute/[right angle bracket]	p. 350
[left angle bracket]tiles:importAttribute/[right angle bracket]	p. 350
[left angle bracket]tiles:initComponentDefinitions/[right angle bracket]	p. 351
The Logic Tag Library	p. 353
Installing the Logic Tags	p. 353
[left angle bracket]logic:empty/[right angle bracket]	p. 354
[left angle bracket]logic:notEmpty/[right angle bracket]	p. 354
[left angle bracket]logic:equal/[right angle bracket]	p. 355
[left angle bracket]logic:notEqual/[right angle bracket]	p. 356
[left angle bracket]logic:forward/[right angle bracket]	p. 356
[left angle bracket]logic:redirect/[right angle bracket]	p. 357
[left angle bracket]logic:greaterEqual/[right angle bracket]	p. 358
[left angle bracket]logic:greaterThan/[right angle bracket]	p. 359
[left angle bracket]logic:iterate/[right angle bracket]	p. 359
[left angle bracket]logic:lessEqual/[right angle bracket]	p. 361
[left angle bracket]logic:lessThan/[right angle bracket]	p. 361
[left angle bracket]logic:match/[right angle bracket]	p. 362
[left angle bracket]logic:notMatch/[right angle bracket]	p. 363
[left angle bracket]logic:present/[right angle bracket]	p. 364
[left angle bracket]logic:notPresent/[right angle bracket]	p. 365
The Template Tag Library	p. 367
Installing the Template Tags	p. 367
[left angle bracket]template:get/[right angle bracket]	p. 368
[left angle bracket]template:insert/[right angle bracket]	p. 369
[left angle bracket]template:put/[right angle bracket]	p. 369
The Bean Tag Library	p. 371
Installing the Bean Tags	p. 371
[left angle bracket]bean:cookie/[right angle bracket]	p. 372
[left angle bracket]bean:define/[right angle bracket]	p. 372
[left angle bracket]bean:header/[right angle bracket]	p. 374
[left angle bracket]bean:include/[right angle bracket]	p. 374
[left angle bracket]bean:message/[right angle bracket]	p. 375
[left angle bracket]bean:page/[right angle bracket]	p. 376
[left angle bracket]bean:parameter/[right angle bracket]	p. 377
[left angle bracket]bean:resource/[right angle bracket]	p. 378
[left angle bracket]bean:size/[right angle bracket]	p. 378
[left angle bracket]bean:struts/[right angle bracket]	p. 379
[left angle bracket]bean:write/[right angle bracket]	p. 380
Struts Cookbook	p. 381
Action Helper Methods	p. 381
Action saveToken and isTokenValid	p. 381
Action isCancelled	p. 385
Action getLocale and setLocale	p. 386
Action saveMessages and getResources	p. 387
Populating ActionForms with Domain Objects	p. 390
Uploading Files	p. 391
Context-Sensitive Error Messages	p. 392
Best Practices	p. 397
i18n Best Practices	p. 397
Read the DTDs	p. 397
Read the Source	p. 398
Understand MVC, Model 2, Sun's Blueprints for J2EE, and J2EE design patterns	p. 398
Don't Use Java Scriptlets in JSP ([left angle bracket]% %[right angle bracket])	p. 398
Limit the Logic in Your JSPs	p. 398
Create Multiple Resource Bundles per Module	p. 399
Break Up Your struts-config.xml File	p. 399
Break Your Application Up into Modules	p. 399
Use html:messages instead of html:errors	p. 400
Develop Your Own Custom Tags	p. 400
Declaratively Handle Exceptions	p. 400
For Visual Components, Use Tile Layouts	p. 402
Start Using Tiles	p. 402
Start Using the Validator Framework	p. 402
Group Related Actions	p. 402
Never Link to a JSP	p. 404
Extend Actions with Action Chaining	p. 404
Don't Use DynaActionForms without the Validator Framework	p. 404
Use JSTL instead of Struts-Equivalent Tags	p. 405
Use JSTL EL in Your Custom Tags	p. 407
Useful Related Utilities	p. 409
Cactus	p. 409
StrutsTestCase	p. 413
XDoclet	p. 413
Index	p. 419
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.