Step 5: Building the jsp-page
In order for the ActionForm bean to work, you must use Struts' own tags for
creating the HTML form and the controls in it. I'll not go into details about
these tags - they're clearly modeled after the "real" HTML-tags. The form page
from figure 2, which we call submit.jsp, contains this HTML:
<%@ page language="java" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-bean.tld" prefix="bean" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld" prefix="html" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-logic.tld" prefix="logic" %>
<html>
<head><title>Submit example</title></head>
<body>
<h3>Example Submit Page</h3>
<html:errors/>
<html:form action="submit.do">
Last Name: <html:text property="lastName"/><br>
Address: <html:textarea property="address"/><br>
Sex: <html:radio property="sex" value="M"/>Male
<html:radio property="sex" value="F"/>Female<br>
Married: <html:checkbox property="married"/><br>
Age: <html:select property="age">
<html:option value="a">0-19</html:option>
<html:option value="b">20-49</html:option>
<html:option value="c">50-</html:option>
</html:select><br>
<html:submit/>
</html:form>
</body>
</html> |
- Figure 7: The submit.jsp file -
The 3 taglib lines define the Struts tag libraries. In this jsp-file we only
use the html-library.
The html:errors section is used to display validation errors. We'll return to
that.
Most of the well-known HTML-attributes for the controls (for example events)
can also be used with Struts tags. Note that Struts insists on using the word
"property" instead of the more familiar "name".
Step 6: Coding the ActionForm class
This class must extend the Struts ActionForm, and must have setters and
getters for all the form controls in the jsp-page (5 in our example). Optionally
it may have a validation method, which I'll demonstrate later in this article.
Note that I've entered a default value for the "lastName" text field. package hansen.playground;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import org.apache.struts.action.*;
public final class SubmitForm extends ActionForm {
/* Last Name */
private String lastName = "Hansen"; // default value
public String getLastName() {
return (this.lastName);
}
public void setLastName(String lastName) {
this.lastName = lastName;
}
/* Address */
private String address = null;
public String getAddress() {
return (this.address);
}
public void setAddress(String address) {
this.address = address;
}
/* Sex */
private String sex = null;
public String getSex() {
return (this.sex);
}
public void setSex(String sex) {
this.sex = sex;
}
/* Married status */
private String married = null;
public String getMarried() {
return (this.married);
}
public void setMarried(String married) {
this.married = married;
}
/* Age */
private String age = null;
public String getAge() {
return (this.age);
}
public void setAge(String age) {
this.age = age;
}
}
This class is placed in the WEB-INF/classes/hansen/playground directory.
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