Migrating to Struts 2, Part 2; First Struts 2 Dev Build Released

Not sure that I understand the numbering scheme.

What will be the version number for the first Production quality release of Struts 2?

Struts uses the Tomcat naming system, so numbered releases are created first, then after a week or so, they are voted on to determine their quality. In this case, 2.0.1 has been created, but the vote for its quality hasn't happened yet. My vote will probably be for beta due to some broken showcase examples, although we are really close to GA.

Hi,

Firstly, thanks for writing the article. I enjoy reading through it.


I have a question regarding what you wrote in this 2nd tutorial, in particular about the "ModelDriven" interface. From the sample code, it seems that this interface specifies the "getModel()" method. When does this method gets called (which presumably by the framework itself - i think)?

"Now, instead of finding a setter on the action, the model is first retrieved and checked to see whether it has a setter matching the attribute name. If there is no such setter on the model object, but there is on the action, then the value will be set on the action."
--> Isnt the model null initially? The framework wants to call setId().. and it
tries to do so on the model first. But the model gets initialized on the prepare() method. But looking at your prepare() method, it needs the "blogId", which is initialized on the setId() method. So by that time, "blogId" is null, and hence.. everything does not work. I'm sure I'm missing an important point here. It would be great if you can enlighten me :)

Still didn't find a way to get rid of all that XML ? AFAIK that was one of the main drawbacks people have complained about over the years (not considering those heavy OOP-ists who thought forms are BS :-) )... Eventually some code-by-convention + annotations (I know it's arguable but 99% of the devs will use struts as a WEB framework so it isn't such a shame to place configuration like form, success view etc. in action classes) overriden from XML if somebody really wants it ?

Yes - there is definately a lot of XML in the configurations presented. The good news is that there is a large effort being put forward to move configurations to a common convention (so no specification is required) as well as providing annotation.

As this article was about converting application, it made sense to provide the XML configurations - as this is what most people using Struts would be farmiliar with.

Sure - no problem. The trick is in the interceptor stack.

The interceptor stack for the action in question is the "paramsPrepareParamsStack". The interceptors for this stack go like this... (1) params - to apply parameters to the action (so the id is set on the action), (2) prepare - to call the prepare() method using the id that has been previously set, and then (3) params again to set the values on the model.

Please note that there is a little redundancy here, as the action and possibly the model will not have the setters for the parameters that are trying to be set against them.

PS - Sorry for the delay in answering, I have been on vacation.

Please let me know how to configure/write action class such that the form input values are populated directly into variables in the action class. (as in struts 1 form bean) without using Maps (which can be done using ParameterAware Interceptor).
I tried by implementing ModelDriven intercpetor as in struts2 tutorial but in vain to get them into the action class.
Please help me.
-Subhash

com.fdar.articles.infoq.conversion.Blog
com.fdar.articles.infoq.conversion.BlogService

hi....i tried to download the source codes from the links: www.infoq.com/resource/articles/migrating-strut... and www.infoq.com/resource/articles/migrating-strut... but couldnt download....are the links still alive?
Thanking you,
Dhiraj

You need to name the form parameters the same as the names in the model. You might want to try the Struts mailing list for this type of question.

So, after reading several papers on converting a struts 1 app to struts 2 can someone please restate the obvious for me: In converting my app I am going to have to rewrite the tag info in all my JSPs as well as modify all my classes to some degree? I had read an article or two leading me to believe struts 1 and 2 could peacefully co-exist and all new features of the app could be written to use struts2... leaving existing functionality in place... Any input would be greatly appreciated...

- David

Good article Thanks
But in article is this solution for forwarding to list.action

<result type="redirect">list.action</result>

I think in struts 2 is better to write

<result type="redirect-action">list</result>

Did you find the two missing classes? Thanks.