Introduction to the Jakarta Struts Framework

The Topics:
JavaServer Pages (JSP) Overview JSP Tags and Tag Libraries Overview Model View Controller (MVC) Design Pattern Overview Struts Details Struts Example

JavaServer Pages (JSP)

A JSP file is a java servlet. A JSP file is nothing more than another way to view a servlet. The concept of a JSP file is to allow us to see a Java servlet as an HTML page. The JSP file is pre-processed into a .java file, then compiled into a .class file. JSP technology provides the glue between the page designer and the Java developer.

JSP File-to-Servlet Flow

In case you were wondering, this is significantly different from a Microsoft Active Server Page (ASP). An ASP is compiled into memory, not into a separate file.)

The Simple Self-contained JSP File

In a small JSP application, it is common to see the data, business logic, and the user interface combined into one module of code. In addition, the application generally contains the logic that controls the flow of the application.

The Simple Self-contained JSP File

In a simple request and response, the JSP file:

Sets the data Controls the flow to the next page Creates the HTML

The Simple Self-contained JSP File

The advantage of the single-page approach is that it is easy to understand and initially easy to build. Its also, with all the graphical development tools, easy to get started.

The Simple Self-contained JSP File

Consequences of the single-page approach.

Heavy HTML and java coupling. The coder of the JSP file must be both a page designer and a java developer. The result is often either terrible java code or an ugly page, or sometimes both. Java and JavaScript blur. As the pages become larger, there can be a tendency to implement some JavaScript. When the JavaScript appears in a page, the script can get confused with the java code. An example of a possible point of confusion is using clientside JavaScript to validate the email field. Embedded flow logic. To understand the entire flow of the application, you have to navigate all of the pages. Imagine the spaghetti logic on a 100-page web site.

The Simple Self-contained JSP File

Consequences of the single-page approach (cont.)

Debugging difficulties

In addition to being ugly to look at, HTML tags, Java code, and JavaScript code all in one page makes it difficult to debug problems. Changes to business logic or data means possibly touching every page involved. Visually, in large pages, this type of coding looks messy. Even with syntax coloring, it is still difficult to read and understand.

Tight coupling

Aesthetics

No More Java Code in My HTML

In the previous example, instead of having a lot of HTML in java code (i.e. doing everything in a servlet), we have a lot of java code in an HTML file. This doesnt really accomplish much, other than forcing page designers to write java code. All is not lost; with JSP 1.1, we have a new feature called tags.

JSP Tags
A JSP tag is simply a way of abstracting out code from a JSP file. For the same reason we dont want to see HTML tags in java code, we dont want to see java code in a JSP file.

JSP Tags
The entire point of JSP technology is to allow the page designer to create servlets without being distracted with java code. Tags allow java programmers to extend JSP files by making java code look like HTML.

JSP Tags
The general concept of pulling the code from the JSP page and putting into a JSP tag.

JSP Tags
An example of Struts tag capability:
<form:form action="join.do" focus="email" > <form:text property="email" size="30" maxlength="30"/>

<form:submit property="submit" value="Submit"/>

</form:form>

JSP Tags
Resulting HTML sent to the browser:
<form name="joinForm" method="POST action="join.do;jsessionid=ndj71hjo01"> <input type="text" name="email" maxlength="30" size="30" value=""> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit"> </form> <script language="JavaScript">

<!-document.joinForm.email.focus() // --> </script>

JSP Tags
Notes about JSP tags:

JSP tags require a container that runs JSP 1.1 or later. JSP tags run on the server and are not interpreted by the client like HTML tags are. JSP tags provide proper code re-use.

JSP Tags

HTML and JavaScript can be added to pages using a JSP mechanism called include.

Developers have a tendency to create huge JavaScript library files, and these libraries are included into the JSP file. The result is a much larger than necessary HTML page returned to the client. The proper use of include is for HTML snippets for such things as page headers and footers.

By abstracting out the Java code, JSP tags have promoted specialization of development roles.

Issues
JSP tags solved only part of our problem.

We still have issues:

Validation. Flow

control. Updating the state of the application.

Model-view-controller (MVC) Design Pattern

MVC helps resolve some of the issues with the single module approach by dividing the problem into three categories:

Model.

The model contains the core of the application's functionality. The model encapsulates the state of the application. Sometimes the only functionality it contains is state. It knows nothing about the view or controller. The view provides the presentation of the model. It is the look of the application. The view can access the model getters, but it has no knowledge of the setters. In addition, it knows nothing about the controller. The view should be notified when changes to the model occur. The controller reacts to the user input. It creates and sets the model.

View.

Controller.

Model-view-controller (MVC) Design Pattern

Two Different Models

MVC or JSP Model 1 and Model 2 differ essentially in the location at which the bulk of the request processing is performed.

Model 1

Model 2

Model 1

In the Model 1 architecture the JSP page alone is responsible for processing the incoming request and replying back to the client.

Model 1

There is still separation of presentation from content, because all data access is performed using beans. Model 1 architecture is perfectly suitable for simple applications but it may not be desirable for complex implementations. Indiscriminate usage of this architecture usually leads to a significant amount of scriptlets or Java code embedded within the JSP page

Model 2
A hybrid approach for serving dynamic content. It combines the use of both servlets and JSP.

Model 2
The servlet:

performs process-intensive tasks. acts as the controller. is in charge of the request processing. creates any beans or objects used by the JSP. Decides, depending on the user's actions, which JSP page to forward the request to.

Model 2
The JSP:

generates the presentation layer. has no processing logic. Is responsible for retrieving any objects or beans that may have been previously created by the servlet. Extracts the dynamic content from the servlet for insertion within static templates.

Model 2
Typically results in the cleanest separation of presentation from content. Leads to clear delineation of the roles and responsibilities of the developers and page designers. The more complex your application, the greater the benefits of using the Model 2 architecture should be.

Jakarta Struts
Is not . . .
a pompous step or walk. arrogant behavior.

Is not even . . .
a structural piece designed to resist pressure in the direction of its length.

Jakarta Struts Is:

A model-view-controller (MVC) Model 2 implementation that uses servlets and JavaServer pages (JSP) technology.

Struts, an MVC 2 Implementation

Struts is a set of cooperating classes, servlets, and JSP tags that make up a reusable MVC 2 design. This definition implies that Struts is a framework, rather than a library. Struts also contains an extensive tag library and utility classes that work independently of the framework.

Struts Overview

Struts Overview
Client browser

An HTTP request from the client browser creates an event. The Web container will respond with an HTTP response.

Struts Overview
Controller

The Controller receives the request from the browser, and makes the decision where to send the request. With Struts, the Controller is a command design pattern implemented as a servlet. The struts-config.xml file configures the Controller.

Struts Overview
Business logic

The business logic updates the state of the model and helps control the flow of the application. With Struts this is done with an Action class as a thin wrapper to the actual business logic.

Struts Overview
Model state

The model represents the state of the application. The business objects update the application state. The ActionForm bean represents the Model state at a session or request level, and not at a persistent level. The JSP file reads information from the ActionForm bean using JSP tags.

Struts Overview
View

The view is simply a JSP file. There is no flow logic, no business logic, and no model information -- just tags. Tags are one of the things that make Struts unique compared to other frameworks.

Struts Details
A stripped-down UML diagram of the org.apache.struts.action package

The ActionServlet Class

The Struts Controller is a servlet that maps events (an event generally being an HTTP post) to classes. The Controller uses a configuration file so we dont have to hard-code the values.

The ActionServlet Class

ActionServlet is the Command part of the MVC implementation. It is the core of the Framework. ActionServlet (Command) creates and uses an Action, an ActionForm, and an ActionForward. The struts-config.xml file configures the Command. During the creation of the Web project, Action and ActionForm are extended to solve the specific problem space.

The ActionServlet Class

Command functionality can be added by extending ActionServlet. The file struts-config.xml instructs ActionServlet on how to use the extended classes.

The ActionServlet Class

There are several advantages to this approach:

The entire logical flow of the application is in a hierarchical text file. This makes it easier to view and understand, especially with large applications. The page designer does not have to wade through Java code to understand the flow of the application. The Java developer does not need to recompile code when making flow changes.

The ActionForm Class

ActionForm maintains the session state for the Web application. ActionForm is an abstract class that is subclassed for each input form model. ActionForm represents a general concept of data that is set or updated by a HTML form. E.g., you may have a UserActionForm that is set by an HTML Form.

The ActionForm Class

The Struts framework will:

Check to see if a UserActionForm exists; if not, it will create an instance of the class. Set the state of the UserActionForm using corresponding fields from the HttpServletRequest.

No more request.getParameter() calls. For instance, the Struts framework will take fname from request stream and call UserActionForm.setFname().

The Struts framework updates the state of the UserActionForm before passing it to the business wrapper UserAction.

The ActionForm Class

Before passing it to the Action class, Struts will also conduct form state validation by calling the validation() method on UserActionForm.

Note: This is not always wise to do. There might be ways of using UserActionForm in other pages or business objects, where the validation might be different. Validation of the state might be better in the UserAction class.

The UserActionForm can be maintained at a session level.

The ActionForm Class

Notes:

The struts-config.xml file controls which HTML form request maps to which ActionForm. Multiple requests can be mapped to UserActionForm. UserActionForm can be mapped over multiple pages for things such as wizards.

The Action Class

The Action class is a wrapper around the business logic. The purpose of Action class is to translate the HttpServletRequest to the business logic. To use Action, subclass and overwrite the perform() method.

The Action Class

The ActionServlet (Command) passes the parameterized classes to ActionForm using the perform() method. No more request.getParameter() calls. By the time the event gets here, the input form data (or HTML form data) has already been translated out of the request stream and into an ActionForm class.

The Action Class

Note:

"Think thin" when extending the Action class. The Action class should control the flow and not the logic of the application. By placing the business logic in a separate package or EJB, we allow flexibility and reuse.

The Action Class

Another way of thinking about Action class is as the Adapter design pattern. The purpose of the Action is to "Convert the interface of a class into another interface the clients expect." "Adapter lets classes work together that couldnt otherwise because of incompatibility of interfaces" (from Design Patterns - Elements of Reusable OO Software by Gof).

The Action Class

The client in this instance is the ActionServlet that knows nothing about our specific business class interface. Struts provides a business interface it does understand, Action. By extending the Action, we make our business interface compatible with Struts business interface.

The Action Class

The relationship of the Command (ActionServlet) to the Model (Action).

The Error Classes

ActionErrors is a container of ActionError classes that the View can access using tags. ActionErrors is Struts way of keeping up with a list of errors.

The ActionMapping Class

An incoming event is normally in the form of an HTTP request, which the servlet Container turns into an HttpServletRequest. The Controller looks at the incoming event and dispatches the request to an Action class.

The ActionMapping Class

The struts-config.xml determines what Action class the Controller calls. The struts-config.xml configuration information is translated into a set of ActionMapping, which are put into container of ActionMappings. Classes that end with s are containers.

The ActionMapping Class

The ActionMapping contains the knowledge of how a specific event maps to specific Actions. The ActionServlet (Command) passes the ActionMapping to the Action class via the perform() method. This allows Action to access the information to control flow.

ActionMappings Class
ActionMappings is a collection of ActionMapping objects.

Before and After Struts

A lot of complexity and layers have been added. No more direct calls from the JSP file to the Service layer.

Struts Pros
Use of JSP tag mechanism

The tag feature promotes reusable code and abstracts Java code from the JSP file. This feature allows nice integration into JSP-based development tools that allow authoring with tags.
Why re-invent the wheel, or a tag library? If you cannot find something you need in the library, contribute. In addition, Struts provides a starting point if you are learning JSP tag technology.

Tag library

Struts Pros
Open source

You have all the advantages of open source, such as being able to see the code and having everyone else using the library reviewing the code. Many eyes make for great code review. Struts offers some insight if you want to create your own MVC implementation.

Sample MVC implementation

Struts Pros
Manage the problem space

Divide and conquer is a nice way of solving the problem and making the problem manageable.

Struts Cons
Limited scope

Struts is a Web-based MVC solution that is meant be implemented with HTML, JSP files, and servlets.
Struts requires a servlet container that supports JSP 1.1 and Servlet 2.2 specifications. Separating the problem into parts introduces complexity. There is no question that some education will have to go on to understand Struts. a.k.a. The Learning Curve (TLC)

J2EE application support

Complexity

Presentation Source
Primary source for this presentation.

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-struts/ Includes examples

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-1999/jw-12-ssj-jspmvc.html

MVC Model 1 and Model 2 comparison.

Other Resources
Struts homepage

http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/ http://jakarta.apache.org http://www.jamesholmes.com/struts/ Search criteria jakarta struts

The Jakarta Project

Struts Console

Search on http://www.google.com

Struts Example