Raible's Wiki: CreateActions

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__Part III:__ [Creating Actions and JSPs|CreateActions] - A HowTo for creating [Struts|http://jakarta.apache.org/struts] Actions and JSPs in the AppFuse architecture.

__Part III:__ [Creating Actions and JSPs|CreateActions] - A HowTo for creating [Struts|http://jakarta.apache.org/struts] Actions and JSPs in the [AppFuse] architecture.

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;:''This tutorial depends on __Part II:__ [Creating new Managers|CreateManager].''

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This tutorial will show you how to create an Action, a JUnit Test (using [StrutsTestCase|http://strutstestcase.sourceforge.net/]) , and a JSP for the form. The Action we create will talk to the PersonManager we created in the [Creating Managers|CreateManager] tutorial. This tutorial will simplify everything - we will not actually be rendering any data making the UI look pretty. The [next tutorial|ConfiguringTiles] will show you how to integrate your new JSP into your webapp.

This tutorial will show you how to create a Struts Action, a JUnit Test (using [StrutsTestCase|http://strutstestcase.sourceforge.net/]), and a JSP for the form. The Action we create will talk to the PersonManager we created in the [Creating Managers|CreateManager] tutorial.

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;:%%(color: blue)''I will tell you how I do stuff in the __Real World__ in text like this.''%%

By default, AppFuse ships with [Struts|http://struts.apache.org] as its web framework. As of 1.6+, you can use [Spring|http://www.springframework.org] or [WebWork|http://opensymphony.org/webwork] as your web framework. In 1.7, support was added for using [JSF|http://myfaces.apache.org] or [Tapestry|http://jakarta.apache.org/tapestry].

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Let's get started by creating a new Action and JSP in AppFuse's architecture.

To install any of these web frameworks instead of Struts, simply navigate to the ''extras'' directory and into the directory of the framework you want to install. The README.txt file in this directory has further instructions. The tutorials for these other frameworks are listed below.

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* __<span style="color: green">Spring:</span>__ [Creating Spring Controllers and JSPs|SpringControllers]

* __<span style="color: blue">WebWork:</span>__ [Creating WebWork Actions and JSPs|WebWorkActions]

* __<span style="color: purple">JSF:</span>__ [Creating JSF Beans and JSPs|JSFBeans]

* __<span style="color: orange">Tapestry:</span>__ [Creating Tapestry Pages and Templates|TapestryPages]

Let's get started by creating a new Struts Action and JSP your AppFuse project.

;:%%(color: blue)''I will tell you how I do stuff in the __Real World__ in text like this.''%%

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* [1] Create a skeleton JSP using XDoclet

* [2] Create a new ActionTest to test our Action

* [3] Create a new Action

* [4] Display the JSP in a browser and run the ActionTest

* [1] Add XDoclet Tags to Person to generate PersonForm

* [2] Create skeleton JSPs using XDoclet

* [3] Create PersonActionTest to test PersonAction

* [4] Create PersonAction

* [5] Run PersonActionTest

* [6] Clean up the JSP to make it presentable

* [7] Create Canoo WebTests to test browser-like actions

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Here's a quick-n-dirty how to. We're creating a new Action/JSP for the "Position" entity in this example:</p>

<li>Generate your Struts' ActionForms by executing "ant ejbdoclet" from the command-line</li>

<li>Generate a skeleton JSP using the strutsgen tool in the tools folder:

<ul>

<li>From the command-line, navigate to "tools/strutsgen"</li>

<li>Execute "ant gen -Dform.name=PositionForm" to generate two files in tools/strutsgen/build: PositionForm.properties (labels for your form elements) and PositionForm.jsp (skeleton JSP file)</li>

<li>Copy the contents of PositionForm.properties into web/WEB-INF/classes/ApplicationResources.properties.</li>

<li>Copy PositionForm.jsp to web/positionForm.jsp</li>

</ul>

<li>Create a new Struts Action in src/web. We called it PositionAction.java. Look in ResumeAction.java for the XDoclet javadocs at the beginning of the class. Use these as an example to create a /savePosition action-mapping.</li>

<li>Delete all methods in PositionAction.java (if you used ResumeAction.java as a template). Find and replace [[Rr]esume with [[Pp]osition.</li>

<li>Override the <em>execute</em> method and put a debugging statement into the method body to verify we're hitting it. Something like: System.out.println("entering execute method");</li>

<li>Edit web/positionForm.jsp so the form's action="savePosition"</li>

<li>Run "ant deploy" to deploy the updated application to Tomcat.</li>

<li>Start Tomcat and go to <a href="http://localhost:8080/apptracker/positionForm.jsp">http://localhost:8080/apptracker/positionForm.jsp</a>.

</li>

<li>This should bring up the JSP, with a simple form in it. Click the <button>Save</button> button and you should see "entering execute method" in your Tomcat console. If so - nice work!</li>

</ul>

<p>Next up - integrating positionForm.jsp with Tiles, putting some meat into the Action's execute method, creating an ActionTest, replacing execute with different CRUD methods (add, edit, search), customizing the JSP so it looks good and finally - write a WebTest to test the JSPs functionality (or doing it via the browser).

!!Add XDoclet Tags to Person to generate PersonForm [#1]

Now let's generate our PersonForm object for Struts and our web tier. To do this, we need to add XDoclet tags to the Person.java Object to create our Struts ActionForm. In the JavaDoc for the Person.java file, add the following @struts.form tag (use User.java if you need an example):

[{Java2HtmlPlugin

* @struts.form include-all="true" extends="BaseForm"

}]

;:''We extend org.appfuse.webapp.form.BaseForm because it has a toString() method that allows us to call log.debug(formName) to print out a reader-friendly view of the Form object.''

;:''If you haven't renamed the "org.appfuse" packages to "com.company" or otherwise don't have your model class in the default package, you may need to fully-qualify the reference to org.appfuse.webapp.form.BaseForm in the @struts.form tag.''

Now if you run __ant gen-forms__, Ant (and XDoclet) will generate a PersonForm.java for you in build/web/gen/**/form.

!!Create skeleton JSPs using XDoclet [#2]

In this step, you'll generate a JSP page to display information from the Person object. It will contain Struts' JSP tags that render table rows for each property in Person.java. The [AppGen] tool that's used to do this is based off a StrutsGen tool - which was originally written by [Erik Hatcher|http://www.blogscene.org/erik/]. It's basically just a couple of classes and a bunch of XDoclet templates. All these files are located in extras/appgen.

Here are the simple steps to generating the JSP and a properties file containing the labels for the form elements:

* From the command-line, navigate to "extras/appgen"

* Execute __ant -Dobject.name=Person -Dappgen.type=pojo -Dapp.module=__ to generate a bunch of files in extras/appgen/build/gen. In fact, it'll generate all the files you need to complete this tutorial. However, let's just grab the ones you need.

** web/WEB-INF/classes/Person.properties (labels for your form elements)

** web/pages/personForm.jsp (JSP file for viewing a single Person)

** web/pages/personList.jsp (JSP file for viewing a list of People)

* Copy the contents of Person.properties into web/WEB-INF/classes/ApplicationResources.properties. These are all the keys you will need for titles/headings and form properties. Here is an example of what you should add to ApplicationResources.properties:

{{{

# -- person form --

personForm.id=Id

personForm.firstName=First Name

personForm.lastName=Last Name

person.added=Person has been added successfully.

person.updated=Person has been updated successfully.

person.deleted=Person has been deleted successfully.

# -- person list page --

personList.title=Person List

personList.heading=Persons

# -- person detail page --

personDetail.title=Person Detail

personDetail.heading=Person Information

}}}

</div>

* Copy personForm.jsp to web/pages/personForm.jsp. Copy personList.jsp to web/pages/personList.jsp.

;: ''The files in the "pages" directory will end up in "WEB-INF/pages" at deployment time. The container provides security for all files below WEB-INF. This applies to client requests, but not to forwards from Struts' ActionServlet. Placing all JSPs below WEB-INF ensures they are only accessed through Actions, and not directly by the client or each other. This allows security to be moved up into the Action, where it can be handled more efficiently, and out of the base presentation layer.''

The web application security for AppFuse specifies that all *.html url-patterns should be protected (except for /signup.html and /passwordHint.html). This guarantees that clients must go through an Action to get to a JSP (or at least the ones in ''pages'').

%%note __NOTE:__ If you want to customize the CSS for a particular page, you can add <body id="pageName"/> to the top of the file. This will be slurped up by SiteMesh and put into the final page. You can then customize your CSS on a page-by-page basis using something like the following:

{{{body#pageName element.class { background-color: blue } }}}%%

* Add keys in ApplicationResources.properties the titles and headings in the JSPs

In the generated JSPs, there are two keys for the title (top of the browser window) and the header (heading in the page). These fields are provided above with key names of personDetail.title and personDetail.heading.

''Just above, we added "personForm.*" keys to this file, so why do I use personDetail instead of personForm for the titles and headings? The best reason is because it gives a nice separation between form labels and text on the page. Another reason is because all the *Form.* give you a nice representation of all the fields in your database.

I recently had a client who wanted all fields in the database searchable. This was fairly easy to do. I just looked up all the keys in ApplicationResources.properties which contained "Form." and then put them into a drop-down. On the UI, the user was able to enter a search term and select the column they wanted to search. I was glad I followed this Form vs. Detail distinction on that project!''

!!Create PersonActionTest to test PersonAction [#3]

To create a StrutsTestCase Test for PersonAction, start by creating a PersonActionTest.java file in the test/web/**/action directory:

[{Java2HtmlPlugin

package org.appfuse.webapp.action;

import org.appfuse.Constants;

import org.appfuse.webapp.form.PersonForm;

public class PersonActionTest extends BaseStrutsTestCase {

public PersonActionTest(String name) {

super(name);

}

public void testEdit() throws Exception {

setRequestPathInfo("/editPerson");

addRequestParameter("method", "Edit");

addRequestParameter("id", "1");

actionPerform();

verifyForward("edit");

assertTrue(request.getAttribute(Constants.PERSON_KEY) != null);

verifyNoActionErrors();

}

public void testSave() throws Exception {

setRequestPathInfo("/editPerson");

addRequestParameter("method", "Edit");

addRequestParameter("id", "1");

actionPerform();

PersonForm personForm =

(PersonForm) request.getAttribute(Constants.PERSON_KEY);

assertTrue(personForm != null);

setRequestPathInfo("/savePerson");

addRequestParameter("method", "Save");

// update the form from the edit and add it back to the request

personForm.setLastName("Feltz");

request.setAttribute(Constants.PERSON_KEY, personForm);

actionPerform();

verifyForward("edit");

verifyNoActionErrors();

}

public void testRemove() throws Exception {

setRequestPathInfo("/editPerson");

addRequestParameter("method", "Delete");

addRequestParameter("id", "2");

actionPerform();

verifyForward("mainMenu");

verifyNoActionErrors();

}

}]

You will need to add __PERSON_KEY__ as a variable to the src/dao/**/Constants.java class. The name, "personForm", matches the name given to the form in the struts-config.xml file.

[{Java2HtmlPlugin

/**

* The request scope attribute that holds the person form.

*/

public static final String PERSON_KEY = "personForm";

}]

If you try to run this test, you will get a number of NoSuchMethodErrors - so let's define the edit, save, and delete methods in the PersonAction class.

!!Create PersonAction [#4]

In src/web/**/action, create a PersonAction.java file with the following contents:

[{Java2HtmlPlugin

package org.appfuse.webapp.action;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm;

import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward;

import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping;

import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMessage;

import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMessages;

import org.appfuse.model.Person;

import org.appfuse.service.PersonManager;

import org.appfuse.webapp.form.PersonForm;

/**

* @struts.action name="personForm" path="/editPerson" scope="request"

* validate="false" parameter="method" input="mainMenu"

*/

public final class PersonAction extends BaseAction {

public ActionForward cancel(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,

HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response)

throws Exception {

return mapping.findForward("mainMenu");

}

public ActionForward delete(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,

HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response)

throws Exception {

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {

log.debug("Entering 'delete' method");

}

ActionMessages messages = new ActionMessages();

PersonForm personForm = (PersonForm) form;

// Exceptions are caught by ActionExceptionHandler

PersonManager mgr = (PersonManager) getBean("personManager");

mgr.removePerson(personForm.getId());

messages.add(ActionMessages.GLOBAL_MESSAGE,

new ActionMessage("person.deleted"));

// save messages in session, so they'll survive the redirect

saveMessages(request.getSession(), messages);

return mapping.findForward("mainMenu");

}

public ActionForward edit(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,

HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response)

throws Exception {

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {

log.debug("Entering 'edit' method");

}

PersonForm personForm = (PersonForm) form;

// if an id is passed in, look up the user - otherwise

// don't do anything - user is doing an add

if (personForm.getId() != null) {

PersonManager mgr = (PersonManager) getBean("personManager");

Person person = mgr.getPerson(personForm.getId());

personForm = (PersonForm) convert(person);

updateFormBean(mapping, request, personForm);

}

return mapping.findForward("edit");

}

public ActionForward save(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,

HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response)

throws Exception {

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {

log.debug("Entering 'save' method");

}

// Extract attributes and parameters we will need

ActionMessages messages = new ActionMessages();

PersonForm personForm = (PersonForm) form;

boolean isNew = ("".equals(personForm.getId()));

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {

log.debug("saving person: " + personForm);

}

PersonManager mgr = (PersonManager) getBean("personManager");

Person person = (Person) convert(personForm);

mgr.savePerson(person);

// add success messages

if (isNew) {

messages.add(ActionMessages.GLOBAL_MESSAGE,

new ActionMessage("person.added"));

// save messages in session to survive a redirect

saveMessages(request.getSession(), messages);

return mapping.findForward("mainMenu");

} else {

messages.add(ActionMessages.GLOBAL_MESSAGE,

new ActionMessage("person.updated"));

saveMessages(request, messages);

return mapping.findForward("edit");

}

}]

You'll notice in the code above that there are many calls to to ''convert'' a PersonForm or a Person object. The ''convert'' method is in BaseAction.java (which calls ConvertUtil.convert()) and

uses

[BeanUtils.copyProperties|http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/beanutils/api/org/apache/commons/beanutils/BeanUtils.html#copyProperties(java.lang.Object,%20java.lang.Object)]

to convert POJOs → ActionForms and ActionForms → POJOs.

;:''If you are running Eclipse, you might have to "refresh" the project in order to see PersonForm. It lives in build/web/gen, which should be one of your project's source folders. This is the only way for Eclipse to see and import PersonForm, since it is generated by XDoclet and does not live in your regular source tree. You can find it at build/web/gen/org/appfuse/webapp/form/PersonForm.java.

;:You can also configure Eclipse to auto-refresh your workspace using: Window > Preferences > General > Workspace > Refresh Automatically.''

;:''In [BaseAction|http://raibledesigns.com/downloads/apptracker/api/org/appfuse/webapp/action/BaseAction.java.html] you can register additional Converters (i.e. [DateConverter|http://raibledesigns.com/downloads/apptracker/api/org/apptracker/util/DateConverter.java.html]) so that BeanUtils.copyProperties knows how to convert Strings → Objects. If you have Lists on your POJOs (i.e. for parent-child relationships), you will need to manually convert those using the {{convertLists(java.lang.Object)}} method.''

Now you need to add the ''edit'' forward and the ''savePerson'' action-mapping, both which are specified in in the PersonActionTest. To do this, add a couple more XDoclet tags to the top of the PersonAction.java file. Do this right above the class declaration. You should already have the XDoclet tag for the ''editPerson'' action-mapping, but I'm showing it here so you can see all the XDoclet tags at the top of this class.

[{Java2HtmlPlugin

/**

* @struts.action name="personForm" path="/editPerson" scope="request"

* validate="false" parameter="method" input="mainMenu"

*

* @struts.action name="personForm" path="/savePerson" scope="request"

* validate="true" parameter="method" input="edit"

*

* @struts.action-forward name="edit" path="/WEB-INF/pages/personForm.jsp"

*/

public final class PersonAction extends BaseAction {

}]

The main difference between the ''editPerson'' and ''savePerson'' action-mappings is that ''savePerson'' has validation turned on (see validation="true") in the XDoclet tag above. Note that the "input" attribute must refer to a forward, and cannot be a path (i.e. /editPerson.html). If you'd prefer to use the save path for both edit and save, that's possible too. Just make sure validate="false", and then in your "save" method - you'll need to call form.validate() and handle errors appropriately.

You might notice that the code you're using to call the PersonManager is the same as the code used in the PersonManagerTest. Both PersonAction and PersonManagerTest are ''clients'' of PersonManagerImpl, so this makes perfect sense.

Everything is almost done for this tutorial, let's get to running the tests!

!!Run PersonActionTest [#5]

If you look at our PersonActionTest, all the tests depend on having a record with id=1 in the database (and testRemove depends on id=2), so add that to our sample data file (metadata/sql/sample-data.xml). I'd add it at the bottom - order is not important since it (currently) does not relate to any other tables.

{{{

<column>first_name</column>

<row>

<value>Raible</value>

</row>

<row>

<value>James</value>

<value>Davidson</value>

</row>

</table>

}}}

DBUnit loads this file before we run any of our tests, so this record will be available to the PersonActionTest.

Now if you run __ant test-web -Dtestcase=PersonAction__ - everything should work as planned. Make sure Tomcat isn't running before you try this.

%%(color:green)BUILD SUCCESSFUL\\

Total time: 1 minute 21 seconds%%

!!Clean up the JSP to make it presentable [#6]

Now let's clean up the generated personForm.jsp. Change the ''action'' of the <html:form> to be "savePerson" so validation will be turned on when saving. Also, change the ''focus'' attribute from focus="" to focus="firstName" so the cursor will be in the firstName field when the page loads (this is done with JavaScript).

Another thing you will need to do is comment out the following lines at the bottom of the personForm.jsp. This is because the Validator will throw an exception if a formName is specified and no validation rules exist for it.

;:''Personally, I think this is [a bug|http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=27316], but the Struts Committers disagreed.''

{{{<html:javascript formName="personForm" cdata="false"

dynamicJavascript="true" staticJavascript="false"/>

src="<html:rewrite page="/scripts/validator.jsp"/>"></script>}}}

Now if you execute __ant db-load deploy__, start Tomcat and point your browser to [http://localhost:8080/appfuse/editPerson.html?id=1], you should see something like this:

%%(border: 1px solid black; margin: 0 auto; height: 166px; width: 337px)

[personForm-final.png]

%%

%%note __NOTE:__ Use the __deploy-web__ target if you've changed any files under the ''web'' directory. Otherwise, use __deploy__ which compiles and deploys.%%

Finally, to make this page more user friendly, you may want to add a message for your users at the top of the form, which can easily be done by adding text (using <fmt:message>) at the top of the personForm.jsp page.

!![[Optional] Create a Canoo WebTest to test browser-like actions [#7]

The final (optional) step in this tutorial is to create a [Canoo WebTest|http://webtest.canoo.com] to test the JSPs.

;:''I say this step is optional, because you can run the same tests through your browser.''

You can use the following URLs to test the different actions for adding, editing and saving a user.

* Add - [http://localhost:8080/appfuse/editPerson.html].

* Edit - [http://localhost:8080/appfuse/editPerson.html?id=1] (make sure and run __ant db-load__ first).

* Delete - [http://localhost:8080/appfuse/editPerson.html?method=Delete&id=1] (or edit and click on the Delete button).

* Save - Click [edit|http://localhost:8080/appfuse/editPerson.html?id=1] and then click the Save button.

Canoo tests are pretty slick in that they're simply configured in an XML file. To add tests for add, edit, save and delete, open test/web/web-tests.xml and add the following XML. You'll notice that this fragment has a target named ''PersonTests'' that runs all the related tests.

;:''I use CamelCase target names (vs. the traditional lowercase, dash-separated) because when you're typing ''-Dtestcase=Name'', I've found that I'm used to doing CamelCase for my JUnit Tests.''

[{Java2HtmlPlugin

<target name="PersonTests"

depends="EditPerson,SavePerson,AddPerson,DeletePerson"

description="Call and executes all person test cases (targets)">

<echo>Successfully ran all Person JSP tests!</echo>

</target>

<target name="EditPerson"

description="Tests editing an existing Person's information">

&config;

<steps>

&login;

<verifytitle description="we should see the personDetail title"

text=".*${personDetail.title}.*" regex="true"/>

</steps>

</webtest>

</target>

<target name="SavePerson"

description="Tests editing and saving a user">

&config;

<steps>

&login;

<verifytitle description="we should see the personDetail title"

text=".*${personDetail.title}.*" regex="true"/>

<verifytitle description="Page re-appears if save successful"

text=".*${personDetail.title}.*" regex="true"/>

</steps>

</webtest>

</target>

<target name="AddPerson"

description="Adds a new Person">

&config;

<steps>

&login;

<verifytitle description="we should see the personDetail title"

text=".*${personDetail.title}.*" regex="true"/>

<verifytitle description="Main Menu appears if save successful"

text=".*${mainMenu.title}.*" regex="true"/>

</steps>

</webtest>

</target>

<target name="DeletePerson"

description="Deletes existing Person">

&config;

<steps>

&login;

</steps>

</webtest>

</target>

}]

After adding this, you should be able to run __ant test-canoo -Dtestcase=PersonTests__ with Tomcat running or __ant test-jsp -Dtestcase=PersonTests__ if you want Ant to start/stop Tomcat for you. To include the PersonTests when all Canoo tests are run, add it as a dependency to the "run-all-tests" target.

You'll notice that there's no logging in the client-side window by Canoo. If you'd like to see what it's doing, you can add the following between </webtest> and </target> at the end of each target.

{{{<loadfile property="web-tests.result"

srcFile="${test.dir}/data/web-tests-result.xml"/>

<echo>${web-tests.result}</echo>}}}

%%(color:green)BUILD SUCCESSFUL\\

Total time: 11 seconds%%

----

''Next Up:'' __Part IV:__ [Adding Validation and List Screen|ValidationAndList] - Adding validation logic to the personForm so that firstName and lastName are required fields and adding a list screen to display all person records in the database.

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