A result is a piece of code that is executed after your action has already completed and returned a value such as success or error. But WebWork comes with most of the result you'll need, for example: such as "servlet dispatcher," used for JSPs, and Velocity as well as alternative results such as FreeMarker and Jasper Reports (in PDF, XML, and HTML).

<action name="form03" class="lessons.Form03Action">
      <result name="success" type="dispatcher">page03-success.jsp</result>
      <result name="error" type="dispatcher">page03-error.jsp</result>
</action>

As you can see, that result configuration is made up of two parts: result mappings, which you've already seen associated with an action mapping, and result types.

Configuring result types

Every package in WebWork can be associated with one or more result types.

<xwork>
   <include name="webwork-default.xml"/>
   <package name="default" extends="webwork-default">

      <result-types>
        <result-type name="dispatcher" class="..." default="true"/>
        <result-type name="redirect" class="..."/>
      </result-types>

      <default-interceptor-ref name="defaultStack"/>

      <action name="login"
           class="org.hibernate.auction.web.actions.users.Login">
        <result name="input">login.jsp</result>
        <result name="success"
           type="redirect">/secure/dashboard.action</result>
     </action>
   </package>
</xwork>

Reducing configuration duplication with global result mappings

Another way to reduce the amount of configuration in xwork.xml is through the use of global result mappings. Web applications often have a common set of results that are used across many actions. Common results include redirects to login actions and permission-denied pages. Rather than define each of these results in every action mapping, WebWork lets you centralize the definitions for the common pages.

<package name="default" extends="webwork-default">
   <global-results>
      <result name="login"
         type="redirect">/login!default.action</result>
      <result name="unauthorized">/unauthorized.jsp</result>
   </global-results>
   <!-- other package declarations -->
</package>

 

Be Careful Because global reseults are searched after local results, you can override any global result mapping by creating a local result mapping for a specific action. Recall that results can point to locations using relative or absolute paths. Because you may not know the context in which they're being invoked, it's best to use absolute paths for global results.