Question

STRUTS: Using a JSP variable in struts config files?

Asked by: 2djohn

Hi Experts,

Is it possible to use a variable definition in the struts-config.xml and tiles-defs.xml file?  For example, something like this:

In struts-config.xml:

<action path="/<%=Constants.A_PAGE%>" forward="<%=Constants.A_PAGE%>"  />

And in the tiles-defs.xml, have:

<definition name<%=Constants.A_PAGE%>" extends=".some_tile_def">
</definition>

I have hundreds of pages in this site, and I am trying to enforce a naming scheme and avoid errors by placing all page names in a Constants file, but I'm not sure if you can do this sort of this with struts.  I had this working with regions which used JSP pages as their definition files.

Any hints would be great!

Thanks,

John

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Asked On
2006-09-15 at 13:57:23ID21991471
Tags

struts

Topic

Java Server Pages (JSP)

Participating Experts
2
Points
250
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: jaggernatPosted on 2006-09-15 at 14:29:04ID: 17532836

>>>but I'm not sure if you can do this sort of this with struts

yes, you can do that in struts but not in .xml files like struts-config or tiles-def

You can use something like this <%=Constants.A_PAGE%>"   in your jsp and/or java files ,but not xml files.
It will throw an error right away.


 

by: 2djohnPosted on 2006-09-15 at 14:38:32ID: 17532884

And do those files need to be .xml files or could they be .jsp pages?

 

by: jaggernatPosted on 2006-09-15 at 14:45:07ID: 17532933


jsp files MUST have the an extension .jsp
java files MUST have the an extension .java
xml files MUST have the an extension .xml

and you have to put your constants in a java file and name it Constants.java, have "A_PAGE" field defined in that java file and call it in your jsp like you did

<%=Constants.A_PAGE%>"

In another java  file, you would call it like this
Constants.A_PAGE

 

by: 2djohnPosted on 2006-09-15 at 14:52:34ID: 17532965

Hi Jaggernaut,

Thanks for your feedback.

I understand all of that, but my question is if there is someway to use a var in the .xml files?  Or do I have to use XML files for the tile defs?  Otherwise it defeats the purpose of having all the definition names in the Constants file, or at best it is redundant- I have the definitions in two places.

Thanks,

John

 

by: jaggernatPosted on 2006-09-15 at 16:36:45ID: 17533359

you cannot call the java constants in .xml file. It would just not work

Why would it defeat the purpose?
Not really. Even we are using a constants file in our project just like you guys and in all our jsp and java code we are  getting the value from the constants file.
In your application, You will have lots of jsp pages and java files but you are going to have just one struts-config.xml file and one tiles-def.xml file. so dont worry about it. It will not be a problem.
Just use the constants in your jsps' and java files.

>>>I have the definitions in two places.

No , just have one and only one constants file for the entire project otherwise you will get confused.


 

by: rowdy_hPosted on 2006-09-19 at 10:02:58ID: 17553639

I don't know if this will help you get to what you want. This is taken from an application that a company we subcontract out some work to did, so I'm not sure if any other config options affect this, but I've taken my best guess as to what's relevant. Maybe someone who's more familiar with what this is doing will be able to add comments.

You can reference definitions from the tile-def file within the struts-config file an example of this is shown below. Using this it allows you to define the names in one place, OK I know it's not a constants file, but at least you can reference them from the struts-config file. However, as you can see this doesn't use the tile-def names in the paths which you showed in your question. Is that actually needed as the path names don't have to relate to the jsp file names anyway. Also I'm not sure how you go about referencing these names from jsp, but if you've been working with tile-defs before you may know the answer to that one.

struts-config.xml
<action path="/submitLogin" type="com.classpath.SubmitLoginAction" name="loginForm" scope="request" input="preLogin.login">
      <forward name="success" path="/mainPage.do">
      </forward>
      <forward name="failure" path="preLogin.login">
      </forward>
</action>
<controller contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" locale="false" nocache="true" processorClass="org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor" />
<plug-in className="org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesPlugin">
      <set-property property="definitions-config" value="/WEB-INF/tiles-defs.xml" />
      <set-property property="moduleAware" value="true" />
      <set-property property="definitions-parser-validate" value="true" />
</plug-in>

tiles-def.xml
<definition id="preLogin.login" name="preLogin.login" path="/layout/siteLayout.jsp">
      <put name="section-title" value="Login" />
      <put name="page-header" value="/layout/header/header.jsp" />
      <put name="side-navigation" value="/layout/leftNav/sideNavBeforeLogin.jsp" />
      <put name="mainContent" value="/login.jsp" />
      <put name="footer" value="/layout/footer/footer.jsp" />
</definition>

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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