J3 Limited

First Struts Project

Introduction

In the previous section, the software required to develop a Struts web application was configured. In this section a very basic web project is created to ensure that everything is present and correct.

Create A Web Project

A new Dynamic Web Project is created, called StrutsProject:

new web project

new web project 2

new web project 3

The struts project properties is opened up.

The user library, created earlier, is added to the StrutsProject, and also setup to be part of the deployment:

The Struts.1.3 library is earmarked as being exported to dependent projects:

export

The Struts1.3 library is added as a Web Library dependency:

sproperties jee dependencies

A Struts project is typically composed of:

Mandatory files

web.xml, the JEE way of defining a web application.
struts-config.xml, the file that contains the relevant entries for the struts web application.
jsp pages to generate the web pages (view).
java classes to provide the functionality (model and controller classes).

Optional files

jar library files, for example data access layer components.
property files, for the text that is displayed.
type library descriptor files (Tld's), these files hold the syntax for custom jsp tag libraries.

Initial Files

A starter web.xml is shown below. This file was originally generated by Eclipse in the WebContent/WEB-INF folder. It is configured to load the Struts servlet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
  xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
  xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" 
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" 
  id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
  <display-name>StrutsProject</display-name>
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>config</param-name>
      <param-value>/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>debug</param-name>
      <param-value>2</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>detail</param-name>
      <param-value>2</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>2</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
</web-app>

The struts action servlet is where all the page requests should go. It is told where to look for the struts-config.xml file, and the debug is set to level 3.

In the mapping, we inform the web container that any page request of the form *.do should be sent to the struts action servlet.

Finally, the default file is called index.jsp.

A starter struts-config.xml is created in the WebContent/WEB-INF folder:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<!DOCTYPE struts-config PUBLIC
          "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 1.3//EN"
          "http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-config_1_3.dtd">
          
<struts-config>
  <form-beans />
  <global-exceptions />
  <global-forwards />
  <action-mappings />
</struts-config>

A new JSP is created, called index.jsp in the WebContent folder:

create index.jsp

The contents of the file are as follows:

<html>

 <body>
 This is index.jsp
 </body>

</html>

First Test Run

In the project tree, the project is right clicked, and debug on server is selected. A dialog pops up:

first debug

The checkbox ("Always use this server when running this project") is clicked and finish is clicked.

The project runs and Eclipse navigates to the welcome page index.jsp:

run project

Running the project at this point is a good idea: it confirms that everything is configured correctly to run a Struts web application.

In the next section, a dynamic web page is developed using Struts.