Annotations

In many places, applications can use Java 5 annotations as an alternative to XML and Java properties configuration. This page serves as a reference for all annotations across the framework.

Action Annotations

Since 2.1, these annotations are provided by the Convention Plugin. Codebehind and Zero Config plugins are deprecated from 2.1 on.

Action annotations are available when the framework scans the classpath for Action classes, rather than specifying individual mappings through XML configuration. See the Convention Plugin page for information on how to set up classpath scanning to allow the use of Action annotations.

Annotation	Description
Actions Annotation	Group of @Action annotations, maps multiple URLs to the same action
Action Annotation	Defines the URL of an action
InterceptorRefs Annotation	Gropup of @InterceptorRef annotations
InterceptorRef Annotation	Interceptor, or interceptor stack to be applied to at action
Results Annotation	Group of @Result annotations
Result Annotation	Defines a result for an action
Namespace Annotation	Set the path of the action URL (used to overwrite the default)
ResultPath Annotation	Set where the results are located (used to overwrite the default)
ParentPackage Annotation	Set the parent package of the actions (used to overwrite the default)
ExceptionMappings	Group of @ExceptionMapping annotations
ExceptionMapping	Defines an exception mapping

Workflow Annotations

Annotation	Description
InputConfig Annotation	Defines what method to execute, or result to be returned if there are validation errors

Interceptor Annotations

To use these annotations, you have to specify the AnnotationWorkflowInterceptor to your interceptor stack.

Annotation	Description
After Annotation	Marks a action method that needs to be executed after the result.
Before Annotation	Marks a action method that needs to be executed before the main action method.
BeforeResult Annotation	Marks a action method that needs to be executed before the result.

Validation Annotations

To use annotation-based validation, annotate the class or interface with Validation Annotation.

Annotation	Description
ConversionErrorFieldValidator Annotation	Checks if there are any conversion errors for a field.
DateRangeFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a date field has a value within a specified range.
DoubleRangeFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a double field has a value within a specified range.
EmailValidator Annotation	Checks that a field is a valid e-mail address.
ExpressionValidator Annotation	Validates an expression.
FieldExpressionValidator Annotation	Uses an OGNL expression to perform its validator.
IntRangeFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a numeric field has a value within a specified range.
RegexFieldValidator Annotation	Validates a regular expression for a field.
RequiredFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a field is non-null.
RequiredStringValidator Annotation	Checks that a String field is not empty.
StringLengthFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a String field is of the right length.
UrlValidator Annotation	Checks that a field is a valid URL.
Validation Annotation	Marker annotation for validation at Type level.
Validations Annotation	Used to group validation annotations.
VisitorFieldValidator Annotation	Invokes the validation for a property's object type.
CustomValidator Annotation	Use this annotation for your custom validator types.

Resources

Validation using Annotations (arsenalist)

Type Conversion Annotations

By default, type conversion for Maps and Collections using generics is directly supported.

In short, instead of specifying the types found in collections and maps as documented in Type Conversion, the collection's generic type is used. By using annotations, an application should be able to avoid using any ClassName-conversion.properties files.

To use annotation-based type conversion, annotate the class or interface with the Conversion Annotation.