The Struts 2 Blank Archetype ("blank-archetype") provides a minimal, but complete, Struts 2 application. It demonstrates some of the most basic Struts 2 concepts.

Features

• XML-based configuration, demonstrates including additional config file
• Example actions
• Package-level resource bundle
• XML-based validation
• Unit-testing

Contents

Creating Our blank-archetype Project

We'll run the following command from our project's parent directory (this is shown using Unix-style commands).

$ mvn archetype:generate -B \
                         -DgroupId=tutorial \
                         -DartifactId=tutorial \
                         -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.struts \
                         -DarchetypeArtifactId=struts2-archetype-blank \
                         -DarchetypeVersion=2.1.6
$ ls
tutorial/
$ cd tutorial
$ ls
pom.xml         src/

Depending on the state of your local system you may see Maven downloading various libraries (known as "downloading the internet", which is what it seems Maven does sometimes). Be patient--Maven is basically setting up your required libraries automatically.

Project Structure

The source code structure follows the normal Maven directory structure. The blank-archetype does not include all of the directories listed in the Maven structure reference page.

Our project's structure looks like this:

Structure Difference From Non-Maven Projects

One big change for folks not used to the Maven structure is the separation of Java source code and resource files. For example, in a non-Maven project our directory structure might look like this:

It can take a little while to get used to, but ultimately it provides good separation of "types" of things, and becomes second-nature pretty quickly. Note that it's possible to use a non-Maven directory layout with Maven projects, but this can be challenging at some points.

Building The Project

There are several different ways we can go about building our project, from simple compilation up to actually running the web application--all from within Maven.

Compilation

$ mvn compile

will create a target directory containing the compiled classes. By itself this isn't terribly useful.

Testing

Running

$ mvn test

will compile the application and run the included unit tests. Blank-archetype's unit tests are not extensive, but provide a simple starting point for writing more complex, application-specific tests.

One we've run the Maven test command we'll notice there's a target/surefire-reports directory. The Maven Surefire Plugin is how Maven runs our unit tests. By default it will create test results in XML and text formats in the target/surefire-reports directory. These files can be examined to get further information regarding the failed tests.

Assembling (Creating a WAR)

Running

We can run blank-archetype using the Jetty server via the Maven Jetty Plugin by executing the Jetty plugin's run command:

$ mvn jetty:run

Once we've run the application we can see that it works by visiting localhost:8080/tutorial/example/Welcome.action as a sanity check.

Application Documentation

The application consists of a few test actions demonstrating simple validation and package-level property (resource) files. The most interesting URLs are as follows (assuming we used groupId=tutorial):

Application Configuration

The default Struts 2 configuration file is contained in src/main/resources/struts.xml. It includes an additional configuration file, src/main/resources/example.xml. The application's mappings are contained in the example.xml file. The struts.xml file sets some constants.

See the struts.xml page for more information about the struts.xml file. For more information regarding what's contained in typical struts.xml files start at the Configuration Elements page, which contains links to a bunch of information. See the Configuration Files page for more information regarding additional Struts 2 configuration files, including links to the files that set all the Struts 2 default configurations.

Welcome.action

The mapping for this action is handled by a "catch-all" mapping in example.xml:

<action name="*" class="tutorial2.example.ExampleSupport">
  <result>/example/{1}.jsp</result>
</action>

This mapping is the last mapping contained in example.xml--anything not handled by mappings appearing before it in example.xml will be caught by this mapping. This mapping will look for JSP files in src/main/webapp/example/*.jsp. Since there's a Welcome.jsp in that directory, we're all set. See the Wildcard Mappings page for more information on how Struts 2 can use wildcard mappings.

HelloWorld.action

The mapping executes the HelloWorld action, contained in src/main/java/tutorial/example/HelloWorld.action. This action retrieves a message from a package-level properties file, contained in src/main/resources/tutorial/package.properties. See the Localization page for more information about how Struts 2 handles message resources (it's pretty cool).

Login.action

This is another wildcard mapping:

<action name="Login_*" method="{1}" class="tutorial2.example.Login">
  <result name="input">/example/Login.jsp</result>
  <result type="redirectAction">Menu</result>
</action>

In the application the Login action is reached via a link, but not directly to /tutorial/example/Login.action. The link is actually /tutorial/example/Login_input.action. Reaching the Login action this way bypasses validation: if we hit the Login action directly we'll get a validation error.

The validation configuration is contained in /src/main/resources/tutorial/example/Login-validation.xml. It checks for the presence of the username and password properties (form values). It uses messages stored in the package.properties file (in the same directory). See the Validation page for more information regarding Struts 2 validation.