WebWork in Action (In Action)

482 Pages·2005·5.39 MB·English

by  Patrick Lightbody

WebWork in Action
Licensed to Shirong Chen <[email protected]>
Licensed to Shirong Chen <[email protected]>
WebWork in Action
PATRICK LIGHTBODY
JASON CARREIRA
MANNING
Greenwich
(74° w. long.)
Licensed to Shirong Chen <[email protected]>
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ISBN 1-394932-53-2
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Licensed to Shirong Chen <[email protected]>
brief contents
PART 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEBWORK ................... 1
Chapter 1 ■ An overview of WebWork 3
Chapter 2 ■ HelloWorld, the WebWork way 19
Chapter 3 ■ Setting up WebWork 38
PART 2 CORE CONCEPTS....................................... 75
Chapter 4 ■ Implementing WebWork actions 77
Chapter 5 ■ Adding functionality with interceptors 112
Chapter 6 ■ Inversion of Control 137
PART 3 DISPLAYING CONTENT ............................ 175
Chapter 7 ■ Using results 177
Chapter 8 ■ Getting data with the expression language 209
Chapter 9 ■ Tag libraries 230
Chapter 10 ■ Velocity 254
Chapter 11 ■ UI components 271
v
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vi BRIEF CONTENTS
PART 4 ADVANCED TOPICS.................................. 311
Chapter 12 ■ Type conversion 313
Chapter 13 ■ Validating form data 333
Chapter 14 ■ Internationalization 360
Chapter 15 ■ Best practices 384
Appendix ■ WebWork architecture 424
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contents
foreword xv
preface xvii
acknowledgments xix
about this book xxi
a look at the future xxvi
about the title xxvii
about the cover illustration xxviii
PART 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEBWORK .........................1
1 An overview of WebWork 3
1.1 Why MVC is important 5
Classic MVC becomes outdated 6 Classic MVC gets an update:
■
the Front Controller 7 MVC evolves: the Page Controller 7
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1.2 Understanding frameworks and containers 9
What is a framework? 9 What a container can do 11
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1.3 WebWork: past, present, and future 13
The history of WebWork 13 Understanding the XWork core 13
■
Future directions 15
vii
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viii CONTENTS
1.4 The CaveatEmptor application 15
How CaveatEmptor is organized 16
1.5 Summary 17
2 HelloWorld, the WebWork way 19
2.1 Downloading WebWork 20
2.2 Preparing the skeleton 20
Creating the web.xml deployment file 21 Creating the xwork.xml
■
configuration file 23 Creating the webwork.properties
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configuration file 23 Tips for developing WebWork apps 24
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2.3 Your first action 24
Saying hello, the WebWork way 25 Displaying output to
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the web browser 26 Configuring your new action 27
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2.4 Dealing with inputs 28
2.5 Advanced control flow 31
2.6 Letting WebWork do the work 33
Taking advantage of ActionSupport 34 Intermediate modifications
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to the JSP 35 Exploring the UI tag library 36
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2.7 Summary 37
3 Setting up WebWork 38
3.1 Configuring actions, results, and interceptors 39
Overview of terminology 39 Actions 40
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Results 46 Interceptors 48
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3.2 Advanced configuration 52
The xwork.xml DTD 52 Namespaces and packages 53
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Componentization using the include tag 57
3.3 Other configuration files 66
Web-app configuration: web.xml 66
Feature configuration: webwork.properties 67
3.4 Setting up your web app 70
General layout 70 Required libraries 71 Optional libraries 72
■ ■
3.5 Summary 72
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CONTENTS ix
PART 2 CORE CONCEPTS ............................................ 75
4 Implementing WebWork actions 77
4.1 The Action interface 78
Result codes 78 Handling exceptions 79
■
4.2 Using the ActionSupport base class 80
4.3 Understanding basic validation 80
Validating an action: Validateable 81
Displaying error messages: ValidationAware 82
4.4 Using localized message texts 86
Retrieving the user’s locale: LocaleProvider 86
Displaying the localized text: TextProvider 86
Providing messages for other languages 89
4.5 Advanced inputs 90
Intermediary objects 90 Using domain objects directly 91
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4.6 Working with ModelDriven actions 95
Implementing ModelDriven actions 96
Considerations when using ModelDriven 100
4.7 Accessing data through the ActionContext 102
CaveatEmptor: accessing the session 102
Example: accessing the request and response 105
4.8 Handling file uploads 107
Accessing uploaded files through the request wrapper 107
Automating file uploads 109 Configuration settings 110
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4.9 Summary 111
5 Adding functionality with interceptors 112
5.1 How interceptors are called 113
5.2 Using the prepackaged interceptors 114
Utility interceptors 117 Setting parameters 119
■
Defining workflow 123
5.3 Using prepackaged interceptor stacks 126
Licensed to Shirong Chen <[email protected]>