Struts2 Hello World example using Eclipse and Maven2
Posted by Fayçal on May 20th, 2009 in Computers
Not satisfied by struts2-archetype-starter (a little bit complicated for a starter kit) and not able to create a Maven project using struts2-archetype-blank (from Internal Catalog)… After hours of googling through many different tutorials, I was finally able to run a very basic Hello World example of Struts using Maven2 under Eclipse IDE… this is my step-by-step story :
Update: Special note to linux (ubuntu based dist) users
1- Check that JAVA_HOME environment variable is correctly set to your installed JDK (and not JRE) folder (In my case : JAVA_HOME = C:Program FilesJavajdk1.6.0_07)
2- Check that your Eclipse is also correctly set to use this JDK : Window ->; Preferences -> Installed JRE (jdk1.6.0_07 must be checked)
3- If not already done, install http://m2eclipse.codehaus.org and if you are behind a proxy, don’t forget to update your C:Documents and Settingsuser.m2settings.xml
<proxies>
<proxy>
<active>true</active>
<protocol>http</protocol>
<username>agafix</username>
<password>guess what</password>
<host>host.org</host>
<port>3128</port>
</proxy>
</proxies>
…
4- Create a new maven project : File ->; New -> Project -> Maven Project, then click Next
leave default -> Next
5- Having the Nexus Indexer Catalog, tape “webapp” as a filter and then choose the l’Artifact Id “maven-archetype-webapp”
6- Finish Completing the missing Archetype parameters, in this tutorial case :
7- Those steps will create for you this project structure
8- Set the tools.jar dependence in your pom.xml
…
<!– tools.jar dependecy –>
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>default-tools.jar</id>
<activation>
<property>
<name>java.vendor</name>
<value>Sun Microsystems Inc.</value>
</property>
</activation>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun</groupId>
<artifactId>tools</artifactId>
<version>1.5.0</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_07/lib/tools.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</profile>
</profiles>
<dependencies>
…
</dependencies>
</project>
9- Add struts2
…
<dependencies>
…
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.struts</groupId>
<artifactId>struts2-core</artifactId>
<version>2.0.11.2</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
10- The finale pom.xml will look like
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>org.agafix</groupId>
<artifactId>tuto_hello</artifactId>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<version>1.0</version>
<name>tuto_hello Maven Webapp</name>
<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
<!– tools.jar dependecy –>
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>default-tools.jar</id>
<activation>
<property>
<name>java.vendor</name>
<value>Sun Microsystems Inc.</value>
</property>
</activation>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun</groupId>
<artifactId>tools</artifactId>
<version>1.5.0</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_07/lib/tools.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</profile>
</profiles>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>3.8.1</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.struts</groupId>
<artifactId>struts2-core</artifactId>
<version>2.0.11.2</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<finalName>tuto_hello</finalName>
</build>
</project>
11- Let’s complete the creation of our suource folders: Right click on tuto_hello project -> New -> Source Folder and create folders with the names “src/main/java”, “src/test/java” and “src/test/resources”.
Finally create a package in your “src/main/java” and “src/test/java” (right click on source folder then New -> Package)
12- Create the HelloAction class in your package
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ActionSupport;
public class HelloAction extends ActionSupport
{
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
public static final String MESSAGE = "La vache quoi !!!";
private String message;
public String execute()
{
setMessage(MESSAGE);
return SUCCESS;
}
public String getMessage() {
return message;
}
public void setMessage(String message) {
this.message = message;
}
}
13- Update index.jsp
14- Create the struts.xml config file in “src/main/resources”
<!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC
"-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.0//EN"
"http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.0.dtd">
<struts>
<package name="tutorial" namespace="/" extends="struts-default">
<action name="hello" class="tutorial.HelloAction">
<result>/index.jsp</result>
</action>
</package>
</struts>
15- Reference the struts action filter in web.xml
"-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
"http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd" >
<web-app>
<display-name>A real struts/maven hello world project</display-name>
<filter>
<filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
<welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
</web-app>
16- Create the HelloActionTest class for JUnit in the package already created in “src/test/java”
import junit.framework.TestCase;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ActionSupport;
public class HelloActionTest extends TestCase
{
public void testhelloAction() throws Exception
{
HelloAction index = new HelloAction();
String result = index.execute();
assertTrue("Expected a success result!", ActionSupport.SUCCESS.equals(result));
assertTrue("Expected the default message!", HelloAction.MESSAGE.equals(index.getMessage()));
}
}
17- Folders and files organization summary
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18- Do a right click on the project: Run as -> Maven install
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19- This will compile, test and build the war file in the target folder of your project and also in your Maven2 local repository
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20- Deploy this war file in your J2EE application server (Sun GlassFish in this tutorial)
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21- Launch your MVC Hello World via http://localhost:8080/tuto_hello/hello.action
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You can download this eclipse project via this link
tuto_hello.zip (unknown, 1,297 hits)
Special note to linux (ubuntu based dist) users
1- If not already done, install JRE and JDK
2- tell your ubuntu based dist to use sun jre and not openjdk
3- Set JAVA_HOME to JDK folder by adding the two following lines in /etc/bash.bashrc
export JAVA_HOME
4- To install m2eclipse use http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/update-dev/ and not http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/update/
5- m2eclipse will report you that no settings.xml was found, to hide this warning, just create a blank one in ${user.home}/.m2/settings.xml having
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
<localRepository/>
<interactiveMode/>
<usePluginRegistry/>
<offline/>
<pluginGroups/>
<servers/>
<mirrors/>
<proxies/>
<profiles/>
<activeProfiles/>
</settings>
6- Since your JAVA_HOME is correctly set, update pom.xml to use it for the tools.jar system path
<systemPath>${java.home}/../lib/tools.jar</systemPath>
…
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7- Install Tomcat6
8- Create profiles and user to access the manager (http://locahost:8080/manager/html) and the host-manager (http://locahost:8080/host-manager/html) web application. just add in /etc/tomcat6/tomcat-users.xml:
<role rolename="admin"/>
<role rolename="manager"/>
<user username="tomcat" password="guess what" roles="admin,manager"/>
</tomcat-users>
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9- Update /etc/default/tomcat6
# do not use security manager so tomcat6 could write to directories other than the default.
TOMCAT6_SECURITY=no
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May 20th