On Mon, 1 Jul 2002, Martin Cooper wrote:
> Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 14:03:23 -0700
> From: Martin Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: Struts Developers List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: 'Struts Developers List' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: RE: Subapps and /WEB-INF (was: Re: DO NOT REPLY [Bug 10268] -
> Sub -apps need context-relative option for 'input' of an Action)
>
> I definitely like the idea of a forward attribute on actions. Not only is it
> more flexible than just a path, but it also means that, in most cases, the
> path itself will exist only once in the config file, instead of twice or
> more. Once is more maintainable.
>
> I'm not so sure about the second change. It means that, for people who want
> to put their JSP files under WEB-INF, we're dictating the directory
> structure they have to use, at least at the top level. That may be OK for
> some folks, but probably not for everyone.
Well, we already are for subapps, by mandating that you use the subapp
prefix as the top-level directory name (within the webapp). This is the
rule that prevents you from having the JSP pages for a subapp under
WEB-INF at all in the current scenario.
>
> In my particular case, the path to my JSP files looks like this:
>
> /WEB-INF/modules/module1/pages/foo.jsp
>
> (I'm using the term 'module' instead of 'sub-app' here.)
>
> That is, I have a directory under WEB-INF named 'modules', and every direct
> descendant of 'modules' is a module directory. This has all sorts of
> advantages for my app, but I won't go into that here.
>
> One idea (that is perhaps even more kludgey :) would be to use some kind of
> token in the path that computeURL could substitute for, if it's present (and
> perhaps only if WEB-INF is found in the path). For example, the path I
> listed earlier might show up in the config file as:
>
> /WEB-INF/modules/$MODULE$/pages/foo.jsp
>
> and computeURL would replace '$MODULE$' with 'module1'.
>
We could do this with pattern matching and substitution in a fairly
general way -- the question is whether the pattern is global to a subapp
(i.e. declare it on the <global-forwards> element), local to a <forward>,
or perhaps both.
So, you might end up with something like this (if you liked Martin's
pattern described above):
<global-forwards pattern="/WEB-INF/modules$PREFIX$/pages$PATH$">
...
</global-forwards>
where $PREFIX$ gets replaced by the subapp prefix (possibly zero length)
and $PATH$ gets replaced by the value of the "path" attribute. The
default pattern (consistent with 1.1-b1 behavior) would simply be
"$PREFIX$$PATH$".
Does that make sense?
> --
> Martin Cooper
>
Craig
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Craig R. McClanahan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 12:11 PM
> > To: Struts Developers List
> > Subject: Subapps and /WEB-INF (was: Re: DO NOT REPLY [Bug 10268] -
> > Sub-apps need context-relative option for 'input' of an Action)
> >
> >
> > Martin raises some interesting issues in this enhancement
> > request that I'd
> > like to discuss a little before we figure out what to do.
> >
> > The simplest issue is a design faux pas in the original struts-config
> > setup -- the "input" parameter really should have been the name of a
> > corresponding forward, so that we could auto-calculate the
> > actual URL more
> > gracefully. We can't change the past, but it wouldn't be
> > hard to add an
> > additional "forward" attribute as an alternative to "input",
> > that works
> > this way. What do you think?
> >
> > The more important issue Martin raises is that the algorithm for
> > sub-application mapping (context-relative prefix) doesn't
> > play very nice
> > with folks who want to put their JSP pages in the /WEB-INF
> > subdirectory.
> > One way to get around this would be to modify the algorithm
> > for converting
> > a subapp-relative path into an absolute path in
> > RequestUtils.computeURL().
> > Instead of always sticking the subapp prefix before the
> > specified path,
> > it would look at the subapp-relative path and, if it started with
> > "/WEB-INF" and perform the appropriate surgery. Thus, a
> > forward to the
> > subapp relative page "/WEB-INF/foo.jsp" in subapp "/mysubapp"
> > would end up
> > creating the URL:
> >
> > /WEB-INF/mysubapp/foo.jsp
> >
> > instead of the current:
> >
> > /mysubapp/WEB-INF/foo.jsp
> >
> > While this is sort of a kludge (and the whole algorithm is
> > something that
> > should be more easily pluggable in a post-1.1 design), it
> > *is* backwards
> > compatible with current usage without subapps (i.e. the path
> > of a page for
> > the default subapp is the same as it is now).
> >
> > What do you think about implementing both of these options
> > (new "forward"
> > option on <action>, and the calculation change)? Together, I
> > think they
> > address what Martin is after, and deals with the more general
> > problems of
> > using subapps together with /WEB-INF.
> >
> > Craig
> >
> >
> > On 1 Jul 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > > Date: 1 Jul 2002 18:10:02 -0000
> > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > Reply-To: Struts Developers List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > Subject: DO NOT REPLY [Bug 10268] - Sub-apps need
> > context-relative
> > > option for 'input' of an Action
> > >
> > > DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL, BUT PLEASE POST YOUR BUG
> > > RELATED COMMENTS THROUGH THE WEB INTERFACE AVAILABLE AT
> > > <http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10268>.
> > > ANY REPLY MADE TO THIS MESSAGE WILL NOT BE COLLECTED AND
> > > INSERTED IN THE BUG DATABASE.
> > >
> > > http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10268
> > >
> > > Sub-apps need context-relative option for 'input' of an Action
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ------- Additional Comments From [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > 2002-07-01 18:10 -------
> > > The problem is, my JSP pages are under WEB-INF, and the
> > computed URL messes up
> > > the path to that directory. If my action config looks like this:
> > >
> > > <action ... input='/WEB-INF/pages/myPage.jsp' ... />
> > >
> > > then the computed URL looks like this:
> > >
> > > /myApp/mySubApp/WEB-INF/pages/myPage.jsp
> > >
> > > which is incorrect - the sub-app name should not be there.
> > It needs to be:
> > >
> > > /myApp/WEB-INF/pages/myPage.jsp
> > >
> > > to work correctly.
> > >
> > > There was also a thread on struts-user a while ago where
> > someone else was
> > > having a similar problem:
> > >
> > > http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=struts-user&m=101865931500963&w=2
> > >
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> >
>
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