The following 4 steps shows how Struts is used to control the navigation and
validation of a simple JSP page using the Struts1.1 Controller Framework.
1. Create Action mapping (Struts-config.xml)
<action>
path="/attemptLogin"
type="com.generic.action.LoginAction"
name="dynaLoginForm"
scope="request"
validate="false"
input="/login.jsp"
<forward name="success" path="/main.jsp">
<action>
2. Create DynaActionForm (Struts-config.xml)
<form-beans>
<form-bean
name="dynaLoginForm"
type="org.apache.struts.validator.DynaValidatorForm">
<form-property name="user" type="java.lang.String"/>
<form-property name="userID" type="java.lang.String"/>
<form-property name="password" type="java.lang.String"/>
</form-bean>
</form-beans>
3. Create login.jsp Page (revised to show fields)
User:
<html-el:text property="user" size="4" maxlength="4"/>
User ID:
<html-el:text property="userID" size="4" maxlength="2"/>
Password:
<html-el:password property="password" size="20" maxlength="20"/>
4. Create validation form (Validation.xml)
<formset>
<form name="dynaLogonForm">
<field
property="user"
depends="required,mask">
<arg0 key="User name" resource="false"/>
</field>
<field
property="userID"
depends="required,mask">
<arg0 key="User ID" resource="false"/>
<var>
<var-name>mask</var-name>
<var-value>${numbersOnly}</var-value>
</var>
</field>
<field
property="password"
depends="required">
<arg0 key="Password" resource="false"/>
</field>
</form>
</formset>
Note that all of the fields have the EXACT same name - The Struts Dyna Forms
require this in order to correctly process the data from the HTML form to the
dynamically created Struts DynaActionForm. The data from the page can then be
retrieved from the Form inside the LoginAction class, and the data can be
processed. If there is an error on the page <wrong password>, the user name
and user ID can be automatically retrieved from the DynaActionForm and placed
on the JSP page again so the user only has to retype their password.
This can also be accompished manually by writing your own "Bean" that contains
the exact Java variable names as the JSP form names <user, password, etc>, and
you can use the BeanUtils.copyProperties<bean, form> in the LoginAction class
to accomplish the retrieving of fields.
WEB.XML
Struts ActionServlet Mapping
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name> action <servlet-name>
<url-pattern> *.do <url-pattern>
<servlet-mapping>
Non-Struts Servlet Mapping
<servlet>
<servlet-name> Login <servlet-name>
<servlet-class> com.generic.servlet.LoginServlet <servlet-class>
<servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name> Login <servlet-name>
<url-pattern> /Login <url-pattern>
<servlet-mapping>
HREF tag: Calling a Struts Action class from HTML
<a href="/fwrk/Login.do">
HREF tag: Calling a Servlet from HTML
<a href="/fwrk/Login">
Form tag: Calling a Struts Action class using HTML-EL
<html-el:form action="/Login" OR html-el:form action="/Login.do">
Form tag: Calling a Servlet using standard FORM tag
<form action="/fwrk/Login">
Form tag: Calling a Struts Action class using standard FORM tag
<form action="/fwrk/Login.do">
